The growing theme with social media as of late has been “disinformation”. Platforms that we once depended on for breaking news our now polluted with disinformation by bad actors and the uninformed. Tech giants have promised the consumer as well as our government that they have the problem under control ever since the spotlight was placed on them because of Russia’s tampering with the 2016 elections via their respective platforms. Because we depend on companies who need data to make income to self regulate the ensuing policy updates never seem to fix the problem. Now more than ever it is becoming glaringly obvious that social media companies can not be expected to implement the changes needed to fight the type of disinformation that ultimately lead to the infamous raid on the state capitol. I do feel like sometimes we may be placing too much responsibility in the hands of tech companies to regulate our human behavior when we should be doing some self regulating ourselves however there is a lack of accountability on the part of the tech companies. It may be time for the government to take a stronger stance on regulating them or at least open a dialogue into what they can do and what we can do as a society to minimize disinformation in the information era.
