Twitter content battle demonstrates importance of Section 230
Kenneth Schrupp
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A video of an asylum-seeker attacking children with a knife at a playground in France spread like wildfire across the internet last week. Twitter censors were quick to take down the video, which led conservative commentators to question Twitter owner Elon Musk’s commitment to “free speech absolutism.” But calling for the government to force open speech on social media platforms would crush business models and make advertisers flee in droves, reestablishing the supremacy of traditional, controlled media and leaving conservatives without any platforms at all.
Many advertisers have already abandoned Twitter in anticipation of forced free speech, leading to projections that Twitter’s 2023 ad revenue would decline this year from just over $4 billion to $3 billion. In the event that conservatives get what they demand and companies have no freedom to censor their platforms, most social media companies would not be able to survive the loss in ad revenue.
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With just tens of millions of dollars coming in from Twitter Blue subscriptions, complete free speech would drive a collapse of Twitter as advertisers flee to traditional, controlled media. If social media companies aren’t allowed to preserve a minimal amount of censorship to keep their advertisers, the entire system will break down. That means there would be no Tucker Carlson on Twitter, and the new voices that have found audiences there would be left with nowhere to go.
A Wall Street Journal op-ed recently lamented how social media communities receive powerful protections without any obligations. Author Jed Rubenfeld noted that social media companies benefit from the powers of censorship withheld from telecommunications companies such as cellphone providers and the protection from speech liability withheld from traditional news companies. In light of this, he proposed that the government strip these Section 230 protections from media companies to force viewpoint diversity.
But this thinking is extremely shortsighted, and it would imperil the ability of more neutral, or even more conservative, social media companies to regulate the content on their own platforms as they see fit in order to sustain advertising revenue.
While it’s hard to imagine a future where social media companies don’t monopolize online speech, remember the rapid generational replacement of Myspace with Facebook, whose users are getting so old it’s now called “social media’s retirement home.” Without Section 230 protections allowing companies to cater to their advertisers, new social media companies would struggle to generate the revenue they need to get off the ground. As lovely as it would be for billionaires to shell out cash in support of free speech as a public right, it’s better to allow social media companies to operate as successful businesses, giving users wider latitude for free expression than they would otherwise have.
Twitter, Facebook, and other such platforms are, first and foremost, businesses — not public squares. They operate with an aim to generate profits, serving advertisers who fuel their operating budgets and providing a service to their users that is, in most cases, free of charge. Without the advertising revenue, these platforms simply wouldn’t exist.
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While conservatives want platforms to allow for broader expression of views, eliminating Section 230 protections would make it impossible for a new platform to attract the necessary ad revenue. In an attempt to usher in more freedom, we would be stifling the very diversity of voices we seek to promote.
Kenneth Schrupp is a Young Voices contributor writing on the intersection of business, politics, and media. He’s a public affairs consultant and serves as editor in chief of the California Review, an independent political journal.