During the first couple weeks of 2025, we have seen changes made with social media platforms that have made it clear that our conversations and communications are owned and controlled by small groups of powerful people. In the article discussing Meta’s announcement of removing fact checkers on Instagram and Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg claims that the reason for this change was because third-party moderators were “too politically biased” and “it was time to get back to our roots around free expression.” This announcement was made almost exactly when the presidential transition was occurring, making it seem that it was adjusting for the new administration moving in. What is most interesting with this change is how the “social media as a public square” metaphor is not exactly an accurate description. These changes that Meta announced move Facebook and Instagram further away from representing a public square. Real public squares are protected by public laws and government, something that Meta just took away from their social media platforms.
Although the change from Meta pushed further away from being “public squares”, there are still many real benefits to centralized platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter) and YouTube. These platforms provide people access to connect with anyone around the world in an instant, acting as the largest public square ever created and allowing the spread of information easily. The Georgetown Free Speech Project recognizes that although these platforms can provide benefits, they can also be used to spread lies left unchecked and allow groups to come together and spread hatred and harassment. Currently, these platforms provide power to both the “good” and “bad” users of the platforms. The same power that allows people to come closer together and spread love, is also given to those wishing to harm others and spread hatred.
The question “What should we do?” or “Should we…” regarding the ownership of our conversations on social media platforms are all very complex, and one single change cannot provide an entire solution to the problem. Depending on the good will of their owners is not something that we can hope for to provide a positive change. Time and time again we have seen that the owners of these centralized sites do not prioritize users first, and that they have many other priorities that would come first in protecting if being threatened. That leaves us alone to come up with other solutions to fight against the power control that these platforms hold.
Looking for more decentralized environments can be a strong alternative. Although these platforms will offer less users and smaller communities, it would allow people to govern themselves and move further away from platforms that hold the power to change massive aspects of the platform in an instant. Government regulation, along with requiring centralized sites to offer the “portability” of conversations is another strong, potential way of fighting back. Giving users the ability to take all of their information, data, and conversations and “port” or transfer it somewhere else would give all of the power that a platform can potentially use against a user and give it back to the user themself. This would also mean that if a platform suddenly decided to make major changes, users could remove themselves from the platform entirely and would not be “forced” into staying on the platform.
Overall, the topic of social media platforms and centralized sites as “public squares” is yet another case in which the evolution of the technology has advanced so rapidly that the law has not caught up with it. We are at a point in which we cannot depend on the platforms themselves to provide positive changes and need to push for more system changes or regulations that protect the users on the platform.