{"id":3960057,"date":"2024-05-13T15:35:35","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T22:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mynorthwest.com\/?p=3960057"},"modified":"2024-05-13T15:35:35","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T22:35:35","slug":"ross-social-media-companies-must-be-responsible-content-they-broadcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mynorthwest.com\/3960057\/ross-social-media-companies-must-be-responsible-content-they-broadcast\/","title":{"rendered":"Ross: Social media companies must be responsible for content they broadcast"},"content":{"rendered":"

I thought The Seattle Times editorial board put it well on Sunday when they wrote<\/a> “It’s hard to believe there is any debate at this point around students using their cellphones in school.”<\/p>\n

It is hard to believe. I remember the slam books that circulated when I was in school \u2013 notebooks with the names of targeted classmates, surreptitiously passed around to attract snarky comments.<\/p>\n

Teachers confiscated them despite the First Amendment \u2013 because they were a distraction, and because it’s not healthy for a kid to be ripped apart in public. And back then, we were only looking at an audience of maybe a few dozen.<\/p>\n

Today, there’s no limit.<\/p>\n

And there needs to be a limit.<\/p>\n

Current federal law holds social media companies immune from prosecution for today’s equivalent of the slam book.<\/p>\n

That’s because the law pretends social media is like the phone company. But it\u2019s not. A phone call takes place in private between people who agree to the conversation.<\/p>\n

More from Dave Ross:<\/strong> We built it, and they had better come<\/a><\/p>\n

Social media companies broadcast content<\/h2>\n

But a message posted where anyone can see it?\u00a0 That’s not a phone call, that’s a broadcast. And it should be treated just like a broadcast is. That\u2019s why we’re on an audio delay. I\u2019ve been on the air here for 46 years \u2013 no one is more trustworthy than I am.\u00a0 OK, maybe Colleen<\/a>. Yet, we’re still on a delay because the company is held responsible for everything we broadcast.<\/p>\n

I suppose we should be insulted, but you know what? We manage live with it.<\/p>\n

And the time has come for social media companies to accept the same responsibility for the stuff that they allow to be broadcast.<\/p>\n

Dave Ross content:<\/strong> Does the right to protest outweigh the right to learn?<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s a lot of evidence that unsupervised platforms have helped create an epidemic of depression and classroom distraction among children. A business model like that can’t hide behind the first amendment any more than a gun smuggler can hide behind the second.<\/p>\n

Just as your freedom to travel doesn’t mean it\u2019s OK for the mechanic to forget to screw the bolts on.<\/p>\n

Listen to Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien weekday mornings from 5-9 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow @http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/thedaveross<\/a>