Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of our Democracy

Lee C. Bollinger became Columbia University's 19th president in 2002 and is the longest serving Ivy League president. He is Columbia's first Seth Low Professor of the University, a member of the Law School faculty, and one of the country's foremost First Amendment scholars. Each fall semester, he teaches "Freedom of Speech and Press" to Columbia undergraduate students. His latest book, The Free Speech Century, co-edited with Geoffrey R. Stone, was published in the fall of 2018 by Oxford University Press.Geoffrey R. Stone is the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Mr. Stone earned his J.D. from The University of Chicago Law School in 1971, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of The University of Chicago Law Review. After serving as a law clerk to Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States, Mr. Stone joined the faculty of The University of Chicago Law School in 1973. Mr. Stone has served as Dean of TheUniversity of Chicago Law School (1987-1994) and Provost of The University of Chicago (1994-2002). Mr. Stone is the author or co-author of many books on constitutional law. Among them are Democracy and Equality: The Enduring Constitutional Vision of the Warren Court (2020), The Free Speech Century (2018) co-authored with Columbia University President Lee Bollinger; Sex and the Constitution (2017); Top Secret: When Government Keeps Us In the Dark (2007); and Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime (2004), which received eight national book awards. Mr. Stone is the co-editor of one of the nation's leading constitutional law casebooks, chief editor of a twenty-volume series, Inalienable Rights, which is published by the Oxford University Press, and an editor of the Supreme Court Review.

• AcknowledgmentsList of ContributorsOpening Statement Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. StoneRegulating Harmful Speech on Social Media: The Current Legal Landscape and Policy Proposals Andrew J. Ceresney, Jeffrey P. Cunard, Courtney M. Dankworth, and David A. O'NeilPart One: An Overview of the Problem1 Social Media and First Amendment Fault Lines David A. Strauss: 2 A Deliberate Leap in the Opposite Direction: The Need to Rethink Free Speech Larry Kramer: 3 The Disinformation Dilemma Emily Bazelon: 4 A Framework for Regulating Falsehoods Cass R. Sunstein: Part Two: Reforming Section5 The Free Speech Industry Mary Anne Franks: 6 The Golden Era of Free Speech Erwin Chemerinsky and Alex Chemerinsky: 7 Section 230 Reforms Sheldon Whitehouse: Part Three: Content Moderation and the Problem of Algorithms8 Algorithms, Affordances, and Agency Renée DiResta: 9 The Siren Call of Content Moderation Formalism evelyn douek: 10 Free Speech on Public Platforms Jamal Greene: 11 The Limits of Antidiscrimination Law in the Digital Public Sphere Genevieve Lakier: 12 Platform Power, Online Speech, and the Search for New Constitutional Categories Nathaniel Persily: 13 Strategy and Structure: Understanding Online Disinformation and How Commitments to "Free Speech" Complicate Mitigation Approaches Kate Starbird: Part Four: Other Possible Reforms14 To Reform Social Media, Reform Informational Capitalism Jack M. Balkin: 15 Follow the Money, Back to Front Yochai Benkler: 16 The First Amendment Does Not Protect Replicants Lawrence Lessig: 17 Social Media, Distrust, and Regulation: A Conversation Newton N. Minow, Nell Minow, Martha Minow, and Mary Minow: 18 Profit Over People: How to Make Big Tech Work for Americans Amy Klobuchar: Report of the Commission Katherine Adams, Martin Baron, Lee C. Bollinger, Hillary Clinton, Jelani Cobb, Russ Feingold, Christina Paxson, Geoffrey R. StoneConcluding Statement Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. StoneNotesIndex

This book is strongly recommended for those interested in the intersection of social media and politics and for instructors looking for readily comprehensible articles for their upper-division courses.