X marks the turning point: we must regulate social media

When an airliner crashed into the second tower of the World Trade Center I was in a pub in Mull, where I had gone to ask if they could heat a bottle of milk for my eldest daughter, who was barely two months old.

The staff and several punters were transfixed on a small television set above the bar and there was an eerie, apocalyptic silence in the room that confirmed we were witnessing the beginning of world-altering events.

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I mention these two examples because, increasingly, I feel like it’s becoming more difficult to pinpoint where and when I first heard of major things happening. It could be age, but I don’t think it is.

In the past, there was only a handful of ways in which you could learn about things outside of your immediate experience; either from the source of the news (newspapers, television, or radio) or by word of mouth, from another person.

Today, news is all around us; on multiple media channels, on billboards and noticeboards, on ubiquitous TV screens in every public space, on our phones and tablets, the screens we stare at all day, every day for work and leisure, and, of course, through social media.

The more of these platforms we see, the more likely it is we will be exposed to news on a perpetual basis, throughout our waking hours.

An interesting social experiment is to try to tell someone under the age of 25 about a breaking news development that they haven’t heard already. It’s quite impossible.

More difficult than trying to remember where you first heard about an important event, is not to hear about it at all.

There’s a famous episode of the Likely Lads, in which Terry and Bob try to get through a day avoiding the score of a Newcastle United match, so that they can properly enjoy the highlights on television later that night.

Such a premise was entirely feasible in the 1960s, for reasons already mentioned, but scriptwriters could hardly write the same episode today and retain a sense of realism, unless the protagonists locked themselves in an empty room and left their phones outside.

What all this means is that our knowledge and understanding of the world are being shaped by sources over which we have no control. That would be fine if all the different sources of information were acting independently of one another, and with no agenda or bad intention. But, of course, we know, that suggestion is risible.

Actors flooding us with information daily include journalists, commentators and editors, but also bloggers, politicians, activists, religious groups, pressure groups, and, of course, advertisers for commercial organisations trying to separate us from our money.

Then there are the people trying to harvest our data for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons, criminals trying to separate us from our money through scams and false advertising, and agents working surreptitiously on behalf of authoritarian regimes to subvert our democracy.

Of all the people involved in defining and modulating our consciousness the most benign, we are told, are the owners of social media platforms, the most powerful and pervasive disseminators of information ever devised. So much so, that there is no specific government regulation in the UK over how these platforms are allowed to operate.

We know that social media platforms are abused in the most egregious ways imaginable. Children have died because of information they have read; dangerous weapons and drugs have been able to proliferate; people with hateful, extremist views have popularised their messages; misinformation has sparked civil disorder. The list goes on.

The reasons why regulation over social media is non-existent are varied and complicated. There is the practical challenge of effectively regulating an entity that is not owned in this country and whose reach is cross-border.

There are also freedom-of-speech considerations and social media owners have always maintained, resolutely, that they are hosts, not publishers, of information. They distinguish their platforms from newspapers and broadcast media by insisting that the originators of content carried on them are their users, not themselves.

Attempting to limit the freedom of users of Facebook, X or Instagram would be to limit the freedoms of millions of UK citizens, goes the argument.

There is, of course, some truth to that position but it is not the whole story. Legacy publishers such as newspapers and magazines have always curated information from a range of sources, from freelance and other contributors as well as from commentators and readers.

Social media can often cause hurt and alarm (Image: PA)

What distinguishes them from the wild west of online forums, for example, is editorial judgment, which includes crucial decisions about what to leave out, as well as what to include. Social media owners have always had the power to do this because they control who has access to their platforms and they set editorial boundaries through their user policies.

It is this consideration that makes the ownership of X (formerly Twitter) by Elon Musk, now a central figure in the Trump administration, so problematic.

It is inconceivable that Musk has not, and will not, use the platform as a propaganda tool to advance his own, and the Republican Party’s, cause in US politics. Even if he doesn’t, the perception of a conflict of interest necessitates that regulation is now necessary, not just for X but for all social media.

There remains the thorny issue of setting limits to what many users regard as their freedoms, but in a country that sets strict controls over the ownership and control over newspapers read by tens, or at most, hundreds of thousands of citizens, it seems perverse that there is no regulatory oversight of platforms whose content is read by millions.

At the last count there were more than 24 million X account holders in the UK and 396 million worldwide. The loss of a few hundred thousand disgruntled Democrats in the US, who switched to a new platform more in line with their political sensibilities following last week’s presidential election, is neither here nor there.

Such a trickle is unlikely to cause Mr Musk any sleepless nights, but the prospect of legislation limiting his inexorable power play, might.

Carlos Alba is a journalist, author, and PR consultant at Carlos Alba Media. His latest novel, There’s a Problem with Dad, explores the issue of undiagnosed autism among older people