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The Future of Online Speech | Shoshana Weissman
102 Plays7 months ago
On this episode we're joined by Shoshana Weissman. Shoshana is the Digital Director of the R Street Institute. She also works on occupational licensing reform, social media regulatory policy, Section 230 and other issues, and has written for various publications, including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
Topics include:
- The Importance of Section 230: why it’s crucial for free speech online.
- The State of Social Media: the changes at X/Twitter since Elon Musk’s takeover.
- AI Regulation and Ethical Concerns: the rapid advancements in AI, the call for development pauses, and the ethical dilemmas surrounding AI-generated content and intellectual property.
- Occupational Licensing Reform: how excessive licensing requirements hinder innovation and entrepreneurship, and discusses liberal alternatives to traditional licensing.
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Transcript
Introduction to Project Liberal
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome everyone to the latest episode of the Project Liberal podcast. My name's Josh Echol. I'm the president of Project Liberal. I'm the co-founder. I'm joined today by Max Marty from our s steering committee. Hello, Max. Hey there.
Guest Introduction: Shoshana Weissman
00:00:13
Speaker
And today we are joined by somebody who I'm a huge fan of, Shoshana Weissman. She's the digital director and fellow at R Street Institute. She is an expert on occupational licensing, social media regulatory policy, section 230. She's written for the Wall Street Journal USA Today. She's a huge fan of the Snapchat hot dog. She has the best Twitter account in the world. Shoshana, thank you for taking time in to chat with us. I love that. I want that intro every time I speak. Thanks for having me.
00:00:41
Speaker
Yeah, no,
Exploring Social Media Regulation and Section 230
00:00:42
Speaker
absolutely. OK, so for the sake of our giving our audience some context, we wanted to talk about three major things. If we get some time, we may jump into a couple additional topics on the fringes here. But the first thing we wanted to talk about was social media regulation in Section 230. This is being talked about a lot due to a lot of the conflict around Twitter and all these other kind of things going on related to social media misinformation.
00:01:02
Speaker
We wanted to talk about AI regulation and then hopefully finish it off with some talk about occupational licensing and some of the changes that we can make to our regulatory system in order to make it easier for people to get ahead. ah But I wanted to open up with something that I know you've spent a lot of time talking about, and it's something that's a little bit niche that I don't think a lot of people understand, and that is Section 230.
00:01:24
Speaker
um I was hoping I could maybe tee you up Shoshana to talk about What the hell is section 230 and why it's an important rule like why what it what it does and why it's important
Section 230: Importance for Free Speech
00:01:35
Speaker
For sure. So I love section 230. A lot of people are mad at it, but to me it's just a personal liability thing. It's saying, hey, you're responsible for your own stuff, which is already the case. Other people aren't responsible for your stuff. That's the long and short of it. There's carve outs here and there, but really it just says that platforms aren't responsible for your speech. Um, it's funny when I joined our street, I didn't totally get it, but one day it hit me and I'm like, Oh, I really want to work on this. I really, really get this and why it's important.
00:02:01
Speaker
And I think the case that that kind of preempted it is is ah really illustrative of why it matters so much. So I'm going to say a bunch of stuff that sounds fake, but it's totally real. You can Google it. So the Wolf of Wall Street sued yeah a guy on an old platform ah called Prodigy because he had said that the wolf of wall street uh stratton oakmont like they're they're scammers they're fake they're it's you know they're just defrauding people and uh stratton oakmont also sued the platform where they posted it and then um a judge came in and said well you say your platform's family friendly and this one piece of content on your whole platform
00:02:39
Speaker
isn't family friendly and you moderate so you should have known about this content and as we know like even back then there's lots and lots of content no one knows what's true or what isn't true i mean lies i mean who knows if the guy knew for sure but it sounds like the guy knew for sure that they were frauds and obviously we know they turned it out to be frauds but i It's amazing to me that that the prodigy lost in court because some random person was a whistleblower. So without Section 230, platforms wouldn't host whistleblowers. They wouldn't host any controversial content that anyone would be likely to sue over. Doctors could sue over bad reviews saying the person was making it up and it's fake. And even if you just get the law, so you don't want to be a part of that, um bad reviews in general. But I think for doctors, it's you know, stuff like that. It's pretty dangerous to be able to ah to to have that taken down easily. And because they don't want to sue a lot of people, it's easier to sue the platform. And a lot of people are mad at it because they think it it protects the right to post misinformation and disinformation. Well, lies are protected by the First Amendment. A lot of people don't know that. Most reasons people are mad at Section 230, they're really mad at the First Amendment. There's exceptions, but overall it's really a First Amendment kind of extra insurance thing showing that people can't drag you into court.
00:03:50
Speaker
for people doing free speech too much on your platform. And without it, we just wouldn't have whistleblowers, the Me Too movement. So much of the way the internet exists today, just it wouldn't exist the same way. Maybe sometimes for the better, but I think mostly for
Political Debates around Section 230
00:04:06
Speaker
the worse. ah So I love Section 230. People are mad at it because they don't like free speech for the most part. There's exceptions, but overall that's a big reason.
00:04:14
Speaker
So, so I guess I, one of the, my understanding was, and it sounds like this is probably accurate, like section 230 as a rule is really what underpins the ability for social media companies to operate as they exist today, like, from the fundamental perspective. So when this made national news.
00:04:31
Speaker
Please correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm not fully read up on this, but I believe that it was, what, like 2018 when Trump, I want to say, was talking about removing it? Is that an accurate statement? There was a whole debate about this a couple years ago. Okay. like So I am remembering that correctly, right?
00:04:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think I mean, people have kind of gone after it for a long time, like Senator Blumenthal has always hated Section 230, but it became a really, really big thing around, I think, like 2015, 2016. And then it just kept growing. And ah the past couple of years, it's died down a little bit. But before, you know, it's, I'd say like 2017 through like 2021, where the big year is for like, it being really chic, chic to hate Section 230.
00:05:08
Speaker
And I was very unpopular for defending it, but to me it's like it's it's a personal ah liability thing, you know, making sure that you're responsible for your own words and no one else is responsible for those words. And you can have free speech online from the comments section in your mom's blog to when you retweet something that is false and ends up being defamatory. Well, and there's no way you would know that some random guy on Twitter is lying, though some random guy on Twitter is often lying, you know.
00:05:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. No, and we a lot of the times when people talk about fighting misinformation, you've got to frame it in the context of who's the arbiter of what is true and what is not, right? And the ability and really, I think the best way to do that is have an open market of debate and discussion where kind of ideas go to war rather than saying, ah you know, a centralized authority is the thing that decides that. I am curious because I know Max wanted to talk a bit about the specific situation around Twitter because obviously the conversation about misinformation is nothing new, but there's a whole renewed effort, a renewed conversation around it related to Twitter. But before I got to that, he ended off to Max. I wanted to just kind of maybe pick your brain on where it started. Like, what was the origin of it? Like, how did this whole concept even come into play?
00:06:20
Speaker
of section 230 being created yes specifically yeah oh yeah so uh so after the Stratton Oakmont case Ron Wyden who was then I think in the house and then Chris Cox who was also in the house a bipartisan team came together and they're like this is gonna not be super great for innovation and the internet and then they came up with the idea and it was funny because it was part of a much larger bill called the Communications Decency Act and like most of it was found unconstitutional and this little bit survived because it was like a good piece of it that made sense and like wasn't wrong so uh that survived scrutiny and it also i mean we're so lucky we have that here and uh when people go after it to me it's like killing the goose that laid the golden egg i mean you have all this opportunity to bring people together to do really great things from all trails to wikipedia
00:07:04
Speaker
to lots of random people's blogs, comment sections, to social media the way it exists today. But it's so funny that it was all because of that case. And then two house members who got in the section and basically like no one was really thinking about it as much as they were about all the other sections. But it's something really great that I think, ah I know Ron Wyden still loves it, but it's so funny to think like This a little bit is such a big part of the Internet today. how was it How is it possible that that I don't think we see that sort of legislation very often? Maybe this is my bias, right? But I feel like most of the legislation we see is doing the opposite. It's trying to restrict all this stuff. So so how did that I mean, what what came over these these, you know, that that to have them actually be in favor of innovation and so was it was it as as benign as what you're describing or was there were there other motives behind this?
00:07:55
Speaker
I think that was just a big part of it. They were both tech nerds and and they care about innovation. And you will find that, but you don't find it as much as I wish you would find it. ah Ron Wyden is still interested in this. I mean, he drives me nuts on Supreme Court stuff and on taxes, but he really is. that He's trying to do his job well. He really is, no matter how much I disagree with him on other stuff.
00:08:16
Speaker
He's really there to to help people innovate, and that's something I've always really respected about him. I mean, I'm sure he does stuff seeking attention here and there too, like maybe with the Supreme Court stuff, but he's he's a more serious legislator than you really see a lot of times. And um I mean, I know that institutions in Congress and Senate have gotten worse, but it's it's kind of sad when you don't see this kind of stuff pop up more and more more really critical thinking of what's going to help foster good stuff. You do see it in in the state houses a little bit more I think from time to time but it's just so cool to me that they got together and were we're like oh this is a problem that's going to mean if you try to keep users safe you're sued for every time you fail. Like that's crazy to me and it's great it was crazy to them and they took care of it and
00:08:59
Speaker
They have this amazing legacy from it, but it was just some good legislators getting together and doing stuff together and I'd love to see that more. and Did Section 230 create a precedent for other countries? Did they follow suit in this and similar legislation or did they do other things? Yeah, it's a lot easier to sue people in other countries and sue places where people post stuff in other countries. It's just there' it's funny, there's ah there's some books on it you can read where it really goes into the history of like lawsuits in other countries, which I know I'm a dork, but I actually really enjoy seeing how lawsuits play out in other countries. I was just getting into this with another area and I'm like, whoa! like
00:09:34
Speaker
here the government will protect you if you're like a search and rescue worker and like you mess up but like in a reasonable way. Well in Canada that happened and the government was like we're out your problem and it was just kind of jarring to me to see that you know because in in the US and he said the government if if you're helping out the government they kind of protect you. Just interesting stuff when you can watch it in other countries but we're spoiled here with how stuff works.
Elon Musk's Impact on Twitter and Misinformation
00:09:58
Speaker
um so So you know following up to that as Josh was saying do you do you feel like ah in regards to Twitter now X and and Elon's purchase of it, takeover of it. Do you feel like he's improved it? Like he's moved it in ah in ah in a positive direction by opening it up more than it had been under previous administration there? Or do you feel like he's brought it in the in the wrong direction? i'm I'm now more of a sub-stack reader, so I'm just like, lett li let Twitter be Twitter, let X be X. But I'm curious what your take is on it.
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah, I thought he would do better than he has. And some things I think have just changed over time. Like you're seeing people get canceled less. And I think too many people are attributing that to Elon. Well, I honestly, I attribute it to increased levels of shamelessness. Just like you started to see, and it's not just Trump. I mean, it's lots of elected officials who do insane things and then sort of get canceled and pop right back. And that was something that I was always a little bit concerned about with the made to movement.
00:10:59
Speaker
Because while I think they did a lot of good stuff, I think sometimes they just didn't really have a plan for what happens after this person's canceled and it turns out that they just pop right back up. So I think shamelessness in our culture has gotten us to where some bad figures just kind of pop right back and just continue onward and I've noticed that more and I think people see canceling is a little more futile.
00:11:19
Speaker
And i I think some people attribute that maybe rightly in part to Elon, but I think it's a much bigger thing there. I don't like how he goes so personal against his enemies. It's kind of childish, like whether it's sub-stack or whatever, like how he's like suppressing sub-stack links, which is sad because I started a 14ers and fibromyalgia sub-stack. It's as fun as it sounds, but now I can't like really post the link. I just post screenshots.
00:11:43
Speaker
And then ah he's driven a lot of liberals away and I actually miss a lot of them because some of them were really smart and different than me. And I liked having their opinion there and now they're at blue sky, which I also don't really like that much. It has its own problems, some of which are mirrors. So I think he's gone back and forth. One thing that I really don't like that he's done is he doesn't fight governments on um censorship and request for user info. He talks a big game about it, but he doesn't really like, like, if you look at the numbers, former Twitter administrations were much harder against that stuff than he has been. He's louder when he is, but it's, that's not always helpful. And I kind of wish the old Twitter administration was doing more of that. So for me, it's mixed and I think a bit mediocre, but I'm surprised Twitter has been around as long as it has, not even just because of Elon, but just because
00:12:28
Speaker
I kind of thought that it would have died or something else would have popped up and it just seems like no one else kind of knows what to do. So I'm very mixed. Some good stuff, some bad stuff, you know. Yeah. I, one of the things that I've been wrestling with and not actually just to add to some context of that, cause like the Brazil example is a great one. Like there was all this bluster about how he was going to fight censorship. And then at the last minute, he just kind of complied with everything that the Brazilian government asked for. And then, and then at the same time, like this happened with Erdogan and Turkey, like they just, he just complied without ever really even making a public case about it.
00:13:02
Speaker
So there's all this weird stuff happening. The one thing that I've been wrestling with Shoshana, this is a bigger question that I don't have an answer to that I wanted to talk to you about and just kind of like rest with as somebody to spend as much time thinking about the regulatory environment around this is As you mentioned, Twitter is effectively like, it's become in some ways an established institution in American life. It's not, I'm not, it's an institution. It's a private company, right? People voluntarily choose to agree with it or not, or you choose to use it. But because it's reached this critical mass of users, almost every organization that's kind of popped in to try to offset it has failed. Like Blue Sky has not really reached critical mass threads as but as many users as they have. Their user levels are completely low compared relative to Twitter.
00:13:46
Speaker
And it serves as a pretty important fixture in the American political conversation. There's a lot of conversations that happen there. Now, Elon is, at least from my perspective, seemingly maliciously using the algorithm and his massive platform to basically boost complete misinformation and lies. Like, I saw Alex Novroster from the Cato Institute talk about something that he was boosting yesterday, which was just completely full of falsehoods.
00:14:11
Speaker
And so as a liberal, I, you know, and a liberal in the the true liberal sense, right, the way that yeah like a classical liberal, I think that we should we should absolutely trust markets over government intervention. We should rely on private sector solutions to this problem. But I look at the situation with Twitter.
00:14:28
Speaker
And I see somebody who is controlling that platform and using it to spread really false narratives, damaging narratives, you know, things that have resulted death threats towards people and things like that. And I don't know how to solve that, whether through the market. And I definitely don't think the way to so solve that is by like tearing down Section 230. But I just wanted to like ask you a broad question about that, because that's the big conversation that people are asking now, is how do we deal with this kind of dynamic with Twitter? Do we need to do we need to combat it? Like, what are your thoughts on that broad challenge?
00:14:57
Speaker
So Elon's also just one of these guys that people want to like like ah brown nose really hard and like it's that desire I think more than the algorithm that reduce that results in the death threats that like someone's like oh you were mean to my guy Elon like go to hell and like whatever I think it's more about that than the algorithm like, I mean, you guys know, but technology is a tool and whatever. But like, but it's about trusting the account. It's not even about the reach. It's like, if some random person says something random against the random person, you don't know, it's not going to really interest you. But if you're obsessed with Elon Musk, you know, and he says something, and it like riles you up, that's different. And I think it's way more about him personally, than it is about the platform, because he could use TV to do it, he could like have his own
00:15:39
Speaker
services or newsletters whatever he wants to do and I think people just get really into his cult of personality and I think it's just way more about that even when um when you see it on a smaller scale or with other people you tend to see it's just everyone loves some guy and if that guy is like pissed off at someone then they'll all go and be pissed off at them even back to the uh uh leave Britney alone days like it's kind of funny to see but like it really is a similar kind of dynamic there um And regulation wouldn't solve it. I mean, like he if if Elon couldn't own Twitter anymore and like got kicked off and had to sell it, whatever it was, then he'd just like go somewhere else and do the same stuff. And then regulation wouldn't apply to him, but he'd still be doing it. And I think that that tends to be just the case, that it's about the cults and stuff like that. And death threats, unfortunately, were always pretty common before Elon too. It's just anger and weird vibes take nude.
00:16:35
Speaker
methods and means and stuff like that you know but it is a good question because i think like that stuff scares people and rightfully so it's not good stuff and i think it's something we need to solve for but i also think people need to like grow up a little bit not you guys i mean like the death threat people need to grow up a little bit and like get lives and it maybe that ties a little bit more into the like men falling out of society than it does like twitter regulation you know Yeah, yeah. Now, the thing that really, the thing that that seems to me, and this is, again, a little anecdotal, but there was an article about how, and again, this is also, I think, an anecdote. It's hard to prove this because it's all obscure, about how Elon, when he took it over, he wrote a, he got, his team wrote a piece of code that, like, boosted everything he did in the algorithm. I just created, it funny you know, I just created a Twitter account, and, like, the first thing that pops up is you need to follow Elon Musk, and then there's all these MAGA red pill accounts.
00:17:24
Speaker
So it seems to me like, you know, the same criticism that the and the other people ah before Elon took it over about how maybe Twitter was kind of utilized as a tool to like boost blue-pilled narratives has basically just been flipped on its head. And now we're seeing the opposite happen and Elon's kind of boosting red-pilled narratives and all these other things. So i yeah I don't have a solution to it either. And it's very difficult to navigate this because as soon as you give it control to ah the state, for example,
00:17:50
Speaker
I mean, what who's the arbiter of truth, right? Like, that's the real question. So should we what private actors? I don't have a I don't have a solution. i'm Curious, Max, if you've got any other thoughts on that before we. Yeah, my my solution is ah stop using Twitter. That's my solution. I just I, I spend, so yeah, I spend so I spend a little time on it these days. I yeah, sub stack is now far more interesting. Okay. Well, why don't we talk about AI a little bit Shoshana before we run out of time? Because I know you've spent a lot of time thinking about this too, Max. I know you had some broad thoughts on this.
AI Development: Fears and Regulations
00:18:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. um AI.
00:18:21
Speaker
regulation legislation, it falls on a bunch of different, it falls on AI in a bunch of different ways. So um one of the ones we can kick off talking about is one that I haven't heard about as much lately, but it's, I think you remember, it's probably about a year or two ago now, but they were talking about them if the AI pause.
00:18:39
Speaker
Uh, everybody was saying that that with things are moving too fast. You know, soon these AI are going to turn into paperclip maximizers and we're all going to be, you know, they're going to to turn us all into some sort of Grey Goo matter, et cetera, et cetera, when they become super intelligent and take over the world and all of us.
00:18:55
Speaker
So it's going too quickly. We're going to lose control. um We need to stop this now. I haven't heard as much about that lately. In fact, I read, I think it was this morning that Gavin Newsom had just vetoed some legislation in California stopping stopping some of this stuff. But um yeah, so so before talking about the occupational issues and the IP issues, how do you see the kind of overall negativity or or fears around runaway AI super intelligence explosions like is that is that calmed down a lot in the past year or so or is it still strong? What was it like a year or two ago all the godfathers of AI because apparently there's like 14 of them who claim themselves to be AI godfathers and I'm like that kid must be like rich or something I don't know but like I don't know who wants to be godfather at that but um
00:19:45
Speaker
But they gave it six months before like AI caused catastrophes and it just never happened and then they kind of shut up and now they kind of whine about it, which is just incredible. But yeah, it's like technology scares people and I hope to just never be one of those people. Like I hope when I'm 80 and like whatever is happening, I hope I'm like cool with it and or I'm like, I'm not sure I get it, but like, sure, let's innovate.
00:20:07
Speaker
it's just childish and it's like I was actually talking to someone recently who was saying AI better not steal my job they didn't have a job because they're not working to get a job and I'm like yeah it's not why you don't have a job it's because you're like you don't want to work there sir these are different things and I think like they mean AI is improving my job in a lot of random ways like I can't code I suck at code I try really hard and I'm bad at all languages all kinds of languages but I'm now i have a i write python for me and this isn't something our street would have paid for otherwise like we don't have the budget for that stuff but can we like budget like a small budget for like chat gpt and i can play around and get the code i need yeah like it's it cuts off like thousands and thousands of dollars of costs and trial and error and and we've actually paid for someone
00:20:52
Speaker
to code for us before and then it broke soon after because stuff changes with different programs but now it's like five minutes and I'm just like no write it like this fix it like this and then it works and it's incredible but this isn't replacing stuff this is adding on and you're really starting to see that in a lot of areas even like I think there's something the other day that like fast food places are trying to use it to like take load off of staff so that way they can think through stuff and improve the places and then AI can handle the other stuff like that's really cool to me um and i I saw that article I, I, I call that article and I, I wanted to like underscore that because I think that's a really, and I didn't mean to derail you, but like the idea that I think the article that, that you were referencing was talking about how everyone thought that when they did automation, it was going to remove
AI in Job Efficiency and Technological Change
00:21:35
Speaker
jobs. But what it's done is it introduced like with McDonald's, for example, table service, because now they're not using the people for the front and the pro the quality and the speed is improved so they can do more digital deliveries. And reality is just increased efficiency. The jobs have stayed the same.
00:21:49
Speaker
And nobody could have foreseen that. I didn't mean to cut you off, but I think that was a that was a crazy mind-blowing article to read. I thought it was very interesting. i love that kind of stuff i see it in my own job i see it in other people's jobs like think tanks don't usually have very big budgets in a lot of cases so we have to figure out okay or at least big for what we want to do so then we can add a new stuff using ai like most of its personal automation actually just like doing my job for me in certain ways so that way i can add on other stuff and it's not cause to fire anyone i'm like oh great now I love that of stuff.
00:22:27
Speaker
spreadsheets when you're looking at it and you're like I don't know what I'm looking at anymore and then another AI can come in and say like okay here's stuff that you might not have noticed here like I love that kind of stuff so I'm excited about it but it's just incredible to me how many people are so pessimistic about the future when AI is also like helping with cancer and maybe it has solved diabetes and like all these incredible things or like it's a great double check on ah on like medical tests like various body scans or it can catch cancer really early like that stuff is really cool but then it has downsides too that people are learning like I read about how um I think for like for what is it for skin cancer if it if there's a ruler in the photo it thinks it's skin cancer because like if you have skin cancer there's a ruler in the photo to measure it but like
00:23:11
Speaker
To me, it's just amazing that we're making these strides and that, you know, if there's not a ruler in the photo, you can get an accurate reading. um I just, I don't know, I'm so pumped about it. And it's crazy to me that all people can think of is, no, not change. It's like, oh yeah, society hasn't changed at all in the last like hundred years. It's so, so it's strange. And it's a sad way of thinking to me too, you know?
00:23:30
Speaker
Yeah. Do you think? Go ahead, Josh. No, no, no, I was just going to agree with that. I think that that that is a very important thing to be hopeful about the future. And because it gets it seems like the again, extremists on the far left and the far right are both united in this like idea that we need to like stagnate things. They've got different motivations, but I couldn't agree more. It's very important to be to be dynamic and be excited about this. Go for it, Max.
00:23:55
Speaker
doesn' say yeah and newton it this This idea that new forms of automation are are you know goingnna going to result in nobody having
Automation Fears and AI
00:24:02
Speaker
any jobs. and this is you know This is probably going back to like the time of the invention of the wheel or whatever. you know oh Now we now we you don't need as much people to push you along the ground. i don't know something right so it's it's This has been around for forever. It's a very old story.
00:24:15
Speaker
And AI is just the latest instantiation of of that same tired old story. But how do you feel like this applies to um anybody in the intellectual property field? right So like if somebody makes music and then there's and a model that is trained on creating music and has you know been trained on millions of songs made by millions of different people,
00:24:39
Speaker
um And now some piece of music comes out and one of the original artists finds out that they were used as training data and then sues the AI company that's producing the the new piece of music. you feel and And that could of course apply to movies, music, photos, books, right? So you were talking about cancer research.
00:24:59
Speaker
What if the AI is trained on a bunch of cancer information in textbooks and in and in articles and places and then produces a piece of information that clearly it must have had some knowledge of some particular paper that was written with, and then it regurgitates that in some fashion. And then there's a bunch of lawsuits because, you know, the open AI didn't pay the specific, so how do you see all that playing out in in the coming years? So I'm not even fully sure where I stand on some of it just because I'm not I get IP, I understand how intellectual property law works, but I don't agree with a lot of it. And I think a lot of it was like, crappily made and a bit short sighted. Um, and I'm not sure how I, how I end up kind of seeing some of it, but there's there's theories out there. Like you have this extreme theory. I have a friend who's into this that like intellectual property shouldn't exist and he should just be able to do whatever.
00:30:01
Speaker
about how bad actors could say.