Blame internet companies for polarising society, says Obama

Former US President Barack Obama has sought regulations on social media to prevent “spread of disinformation online”, which, he claimed, is harming American democracy.

Speaking at Stanford Cyber Policy Center event recently, Obama said the very design of social media platforms is faulty and demanded a legislation to keep a tab on the tech industry.

The former President blamed internet companies for the polarization that’s impacted the society.

Obama’s comments gain significance in the backdrop of the US Congress contemplating reforms which include changes in competition laws that govern the technology sector, privacy protections and modifications to Section 230, which permits content moderation but also shields social media platforms from liability for users’ posts.

The Obama administration during its time was considered close to the tech industry. “I might never have been elected president if it hadn’t been for websites like — and I’m dating myself — MySpace, Meetup and Facebook, that allowed an army of young volunteers to organize raise money, spread our message,” Obama said. “That’s what elected me.”

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But that was the pre-Trump era. The cosy relationship between White House and companies like Google and Facebook changed dramatically after Donald Trump became the President in 2016. The revelation of Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal changed the equations for ever.

Obama is against the complete repeal of Section 230. In contrast, current President Joe Biden, who Obama’s vice-president then, has championed the need for abolition of Section 230 during campaigning.

Obama believes reforms are needed and social media should “be required to have a higher standard of care when it comes to advertising on their site.”

In the recent past, a section of US lawmakers have said the social media platforms censor posts that don’t suit their ideology. The platforms, however, said they simply enforce their community guidelines.

“Social media companies already make choices about what is or is not allowed on their platforms and how that content appears. Both explicitly through content moderation and implicitly through algorithms. The problem is we often don’t know what principles govern those decisions,” he said.

“Tech companies should be able to protect their intellectual property while also following certain safety standards that we as a country, not just them, have agreed are necessary for the greater good,” he added.

Obama also blamed social media for the fall of newspapers. “What social media platforms have done though, thanks to their increasing market dominance and their emphasis on speed, is accelerate the decline of newspapers and other traditional news sources,” he said.