Media Regulation Debate

This post is about media regulation in relation to Western and Chinese audiences and the debaate surrounding the changing media environment.

1. Should media companies be in charge of regulating their own content, or should the government have a bigger role in this, and why?
2. How does government regulation affect what we see and hear in the media? Can too much regulation stifle creativity and free speech, or is it necessary for protecting the public?
3. Do social media platforms like facebook and twitter need more rules and oversight, or should they be left to regulate themselves? How might this impact our online experiences?
4. Should schools teach students media literacy? How might this help us better navigate the media we consume, and is it the responsiblity of educators or individuals themselves?

Answers

1. Yes, companies should be in charge of regulating their own content as when governments get too heavily involved this may lead to more restrictions on content and the creativity of the media product goes down which may reduce the innovation aspect of a lot of media content we see today. Unavoidably, governments will become increasingly involved in oversight. However,  I believe that platforms should step up their self-regulation efforts right away. A  historical study on self-regulation conducted that both before and after the widespread use of the internet in order to examine the viability of self-regulation. According to theorists, Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt media is increasingly hard to regulate. This not only puts pressure on media companis but, additionally government as well. As, the role of regulators is to protect the audience. 

2. Government regulations can affect a lot of what we see and hear from the media, a lot of the content we see is restricted to the values and cultural norms of the particular region. This could lean onto the argument that the regulation of media content could lead to a lack of diverse content that other places in the world may be able to see. This is particularly the case in China, with its app Douyin restricting a lot of content to kids with it having many videos within the science, art and innovation videos being spread to kids and helping them develop as a nation whereas, Douyin’s US counterpart Tiktok faces backlash over its unregulated content that children could see, including content that features uneducational content and could be graphic to certain areas. There is a lack of strict regulation in the US, with the time limit on the app which is mandatory in China being optional in the US. The ability of the government to control speech on the internet and elsewhere is severely limited by American law and culture. The right to curate an online platform may be directly or indirectly restricted by regulations of social media corporations. Government regulation of speech on social media that is directly related to violence, such as terrorism, is possible, but more extensive measures are probably unlawful. The government has no business preventing harms brought on by "fake news" or "hate speech"; digital companies are determined to handle such harms, leaving little for the government to do. Which is where US law section 230 comes into play as they play into part the extent of which social media apps would restrict content. For these media companies to regulate, the content has to be uploaded to the app first which is why the issue became more prevalent as this lack of protection to the public makes it increasingly difficult to surveil what the audiences are consuming. 

3. In the recent events of the world, the Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on numerous nations. The propagation of fake news, which made untrue promises about cures and ways to prevent the virus, hindered the public's ability to respond to the health catastrophe in the United States. We can help the globe deal with such global crises more effectively and protect people from false information that could frighten the public by implementing rules to control social media.