Social media regulation, more government censorship.

 SOCIAL MEDIA ABUSES CAN BE ADDRESSED

ALLOW FREEDOM AND CHOICES BY USERS AND PARENTS

I suspect that recent political outrage with social media companies is mostly a smokescreen to institute more censorship and government control over what Americans see and hear. We continually hear about taking away protections in section 230, which makes Social media companies immune from liability for what its users say on their platform. Users are still liable for what they say or do if it breaks the law. Users should be the ones to be held accountable.

Very little is being mentioned about the collusion between social media and government entities both here and abroad. Nothing is being mentioned about political bias and collusion between social media companies and politicians. Nothing is being mentioned about the fact that the intelligence and security services pay these companies $Billions to collect and convey information that is likely being used to profile all Americans. Instead we are being distracted by stories of traumatised teenage girls and other things that responsible parent should be dealing with.

All these companies have rules forbidding content that is illegal, contains child pornoghraphy or drug trafficing and other like activities. These rules are good and easily enforced. As for their banning and adding disclaimers to other speech this should not be allowed as they should be considered public utilities. We have laws against all kinds of discrimination and any discrimination based on race, religion or political affiliation or opinion should not be allowed. It should be an open forum as they pretend that it is, if they are either pushing or restraining political speech then they are political activist and should be subject to election laws for in kind contributions. They should be able to be sued for discrimination. It is simple, allow freedom of speech that is legal without bias or restraint.

Collusion between these very powerful companies and the government or politicians should be punishable.

As for children, the addiction of children to social media is an epidemic. They are being deprived a full life of  a varied experience. They seem to be looking at this creen every waking minute. Again, I don't believe this is a government responsibility, but it is a parental responsibility. It would not be hard for tech companies to provide parents the ability to authorize activities for underage children. They would need to approve what their children watch and be able to have these devices automatically shut off when a pre selected user time is reached. 

Make it easy for parents to regulate what and how long they have access to these activities. Public services messag3s similar to anti-drug and smoking campaigns should alert parent to the long term dangers to their children.

We can make social media responsible and an asset, but freedom of speech and the ability of parents to control it should be the priority. Government will undoubtedly use any new power for its own advantage, without really making anything better for the people.