Congress Must Address Social Media’s Misinformation and Hate Speech Problems

Nearly half of Americans now rely on social media as their primary source of news, creating a media landscape where misinformation, disinformation, hate speech, and conspiracy theories flourish in an environment optimized for engagement rather than accuracy.

The digital platforms driving this transformation—Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, and others—operate with minimal accountability and regulation in the United States despite their profound influence on public discourse. The consequences extend far beyond media consumption, threatening the foundation of democratic society itself.

“A society without reliable information is a society vulnerable to manipulation, polarization and authoritarian tendencies,” warns John M. Eger, professor emeritus at San Diego State University and former telecommunications advisor to President Gerald Ford.

The economic model of these platforms has devastated traditional journalism. By offering “free” services subsidized by advertising revenue, social media giants have siphoned crucial financial resources away from established news organizations. The result has been devastating: newspapers closing at unprecedented rates, local broadcasters downsizing, investigative journalism diminishing, and “news deserts”—communities without local reporting—expanding across the country.

At the heart of this crisis lies Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, enacted in 1996 to protect the nascent internet. The provision states: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

This legal shield, created for a different technological era, now protects trillion-dollar companies from responsibility for harmful content on their platforms. While Section 230 includes “Good Samaritan” protections for platforms that remove objectionable content, the law effectively insulates these companies from meaningful accountability.

The early architects of the internet could never have anticipated platforms with billions of users or algorithms designed to amplify content that triggers emotional responses regardless of its veracity. The documented harms are extensive: election interference through disinformation campaigns, public health crises worsened by medical misinformation, mental health impacts particularly among young users, facilitation of extremism, and the collapse of local journalism.

Despite growing awareness of these problems, congressional action remains inadequate. Several bipartisan proposals have emerged, including the Kids Online Safety Act and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, but most remain stalled due to partisan gridlock and intensive lobbying efforts by technology companies.

Industry experts and policy analysts increasingly agree that Section 230 requires modernization rather than elimination. Many propose that immunity should be conditional rather than automatic, requiring platforms to demonstrate transparency, accountability, and compliance with rigorous standards overseen by federal regulators like the FCC or FTC.

Beyond Section 230 reform, other potential regulatory approaches include comprehensive privacy and data-protection laws, requirements for algorithmic transparency, stronger antitrust enforcement to reduce monopoly power, enhanced child-protection standards, and stricter disclosure rules for political advertising.

“Technology has transformed health care, education, business and government for the better,” Eger notes. “But it has also unleashed some of the most divisive, discriminatory and hate-filled rhetoric we have seen since World War II.”

The urgency for action extends beyond regulation to rebuilding journalism itself. This would require strengthening financial models for news organizations, updating educational curricula for future journalists, and creating incentives for media companies to maintain high ethical standards in the digital age.

Without reliable information sources, democracy faces an existential challenge. As David Gergen, advisor to four U.S. presidents, observed before his passing, real local and international news coverage has nearly “reached a vanishing point in the mainstream press.” What’s at stake, experts warn, is not merely media reform but the integrity of democratic institutions and processes.

The United States can no longer afford a largely unregulated information ecosystem where profit-driven platforms determine how citizens receive information critical to civic participation. The fundamental question now is whether Congress will act with sufficient speed and determination to address this growing crisis before further damage is done to American democracy.