The Economist Social media and free speech

From: The Economist - Thursday Oct 22, 2020 05:22 pm

The Economist

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October 22ND 2020

The Economist this week

Highlights from the latest issue

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Our cover this week looks at the hurricane of popular fury buffeting tech firms for supposedly destroying society. The left says that, from the conspiracy theories of QAnon to the incitement of white supremacists, social-media platforms are drowning users in hatred and falsehood. The right accuses the tech firms of censorship, including last week of a dubious article alleging corruption in the family of Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee. The tech firms’ shifting attempts to clean up the cesspool mean that a handful of unelected executives are determining the boundaries of free speech. As online outrage mounts, pressure is growing on the tech firms to restrict ever more material. Politicians, tech companies and—most important—the users of social media all have a stake. But how should they safeguard the rules of public speech?

Zanny Minton Beddoes
Editor-In-Chief

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The world this week

New Zealand’s Labour Party romped home to secure a fresh term at a general election, winning 49% of the vote and an overall parliamentary majority, the first for any party in the country since proportional representation was adopted in 1996. Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, has been praised for her handling of the covid-19 outbreak. The centre-right National Party was crushed, taking just 27% of the vote, a defeat it did not envisage when it chose Judith “Crusher” Collins as its leader in July.

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More from politics this week

America’s Justice Department sued Google for violating antitrust laws, accusing what it described as “the gatekeeper of the internet” of choking off competition for search engines by striking deals with Apple, mobile-phone carriers and other companies. It is the department’s biggest antitrust suit since taking on Microsoft in 1998. With lots of cash on hand, Google is digging in for a long legal fight. It says there is plenty of competition, pointing to consumers who search and shop on Amazon.

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More from business this week

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