Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Social Networks Must Stand Against Censorship

Users don't want their content policed. And it can't be done, anyway.

December 7, 2016 at 1:07 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Let the user decide.
Photographer: alengo/Getty

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The pressure for social networks to censor the content that appears on them just won't cease, and the networks are bending. Censorship, however, is not what users want. Nor is it technically possible, even if the platforms won't admit it.

The European Union is pushing Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to comply with member states' hate speech laws. In the U.S., many in the media and on the losing side of the recent presidential campaign would like to see the platforms take action against fake news. Unlike in cases involving abuse of market dominance (the charge Google faces in Europe) or the release of users' private data (over which Microsoft has fought the U.S. government), the platform owners aren't fighting back.