Four Questions About Regulating Online Hate Speech
Determining the standards for online hate speech and disinformation
On August 6, 2019, the New York Times devoted the front page of its business section to this screaming headline and three articles that followed it:
The three articles involve some careful and important reporting. Two of them capture an underreported feature of online content issues, namely that internet companies, other than social media firms, have a role in regulating what we might call “dangerous speech” found on platforms like 8chan. A company like Cloudflare, which provides network security for millions of sites, can operate as a gateway for internet access, just as internet service providers, telecommunications companies, website hosting services, mobile device manufacturers, app stores, and many others do (see my report to the UN in 2017). Matthew Prince, the CEO of Cloudflare, has suggested that content moderation is a responsibility he does not want to have — he does not want Cloudflare to become an internet censor. (See this great piece from Evelyn Douek discussing Prince’s position and the issues at stake.)
