Recommendation

Congress should create transparency requirements for social media platforms’ content moderation decisions.

Details

Congress should pass legislation setting transparency requirements for content moderation decisions of social media platforms. Congress should require social media platforms to clearly describe what content and behavior is allowed and not allowed, how they enforce these rules, and how users can appeal moderation decisions. Additionally, the law should require platforms to enforce their rules consistently and create an appeals process for content moderation decisions wherever one does not already exist. To increase transparency surrounding content moderation, platforms should release publicly accessible annual reports, including data on how many and what types of rule-breaking content and behavior a company removed from the platform, how many of those decisions were appealed by users, and how many of those appeals were successful.

Keep reading:

▪ Ash Johnson and Daniel Castro, “How to Address Political Speech on Social Media in the United States” (ITIF, October 2022), https://itif.org/publications/2022/10/11/how-to-address-political-speech-on-social-media-in-the-united-states/.