, Columnist
Regulate Facebook and Twitter? The Case Is Getting Stronger
The three problems that justify efforts to rein in social media.
Protesting fake ads.
Photographer: Zach Gibson/Getty Images
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The U.S. government should not regulate social media. It should stay far away from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and the rest. Any regulatory effort might well violate the First Amendment. Even if it turned out to be constitutional, it would squelch creativity and innovation in the very places where they are most needed.
Until recently, I would have endorsed every sentence in the above paragraph. But as Baron Bramwell, the English judge, once put it, “The matter does not appear to me now as it appears to have appeared to me then.”2