Taming Big Tech: A Pro-Competitive Solution to Protect Free Expression

"ARTICLE 19 believes that the excessive market power that big social media platforms hold should be a global concern."

In this policy document, ARTICLE 19 seeks to address the current freedom of expression challenges in online content curation by proposing a solution that encourages open markets, competition, and users' empowerment. It lays out a pro-competition solution that is able to transform social media from a closed space - controlled by a handful of companies and with increasing challenges related to hate speech and disinformation - to an open and diverse space where users have a real choice between service providers and can step out from exploitative relationships. ARTICLE 19 believes that this solution will lead to better protection of freedom of expression, pluralism, and diversity, as well as to more open, fair, and decentralised digital markets that enable the free flow of information in society.

As explained in the document, "In recent years, social media platforms have become important actors in how we exercise the right to freedom of expression. Their reach and influence are undeniable; they have become platforms where people can connect, engage, communicate, campaign, and share ideas, information, and opinions. While platforms enable users' engagement, they also extract, collect, and sell unprecedented amounts of data. Their business models have contributed to the dissemination of various kinds of problematic content, including 'hate speech' and forms of 'disinformation'."

Many states around the world are looking for ways to address these challenges through legislative and regulatory interventions. However, these efforts, according to ARTICLE 19, only address part of the problem. "Worryingly, a number of these interventions might do more harm than good to users' rights, and could denature the internet as a free and open space for all. Many current proposals either focus on specific types of content (e.g. 'hate speech', 'disinformation', or 'terrorism'); adopt a 'follow the money' approach, concentrating on the relationships between social media platforms, news producers, and advertisers; or combine a targeted intervention on selected services that digital platforms provide with a broader intervention on behaviours that platforms with a certain degree of market power put in place."

What seems to be missing for ARTICLE 19 is a more far-reaching approach that looks at not only content moderation systems but also the market failures in social media markets that significantly amplify the challenges faced. Equal attention should be devoted to the market power of those providing content curation. As gatekeepers, the large tech companies have a direct impact on the dynamic of content distribution, as well as on media diversity and freedom of expression on social media markets. To fix these challenges, this policy document proposes a solution that will diminish this concentration of power in the market and abolish gatekeeping. It is hoped that this solution will lower barriers to entry for alternative players and empower users.

The policy document is divided into three parts. First, it sets out the applicable standards for positive obligations of states to promote the right to freedom of expression, particularly as it relates to a plurality of sources, market concentration, and exposure to diversity. Second, it lays out the key issues that arise in relation to content curation on social media platforms, where gatekeepers are the root cause of the problem. And third, it proposes its pro-competitive regulatory solution to solve or minimise the impact of those issues.

As part of the solution, the document makes a number of recommendations for regulators and companies, which, in brief, are:

1. States should put in place measures to counterweight excessive concentration on social media markets. They should introduce asymmetric regulation that imposes the unbundling between hosting and content curation on large platforms.
2. Independent regulatory authorities should enforce asymmetric regulation that imposes the unbundling of services.
3. Independent regulatory authorities should ensure that the unbundling rules are implemented in an effective way.
4. The unbundling of services should be shaped as a form of functional separation, not a structural one.
5. Complementary human-rights-based content curation rules should be introduced for all players, respecting the principle of proportionality.

ARTICLE 19 stresses that the proposed pro-competitive measures that reduce the power of large social media platforms and diversify the landscape are only part of the solution. "They must go hand in hand with content-curation services that comply with international human rights standards. These two solutions are not mutually exclusive; they must complement each other. We need to protect both freedom of expression and media diversity on social media markets."

This policy document forms part of ARTICLE 19's two-step solution, with the first step outlined in the first policy document "Watching the Watchmen" (see Related Summaries, below). It sets out how governments can regulate content moderation while protecting free expression and at the same time avoid giving even greater power to the handful of companies that dominate the digital sphere.