Debating Matters: ‘Tech companies should act to stop online misinformation’
Partners:
The Battle of Ideas festival hosts a special Debating Matters championship. Known for its rigorous and intellectually challenging format that values substance over style, the event will showcase some of the best debaters from two UK schools who have been involved in Debating Matters over recent years.
On 8 January 2021, Twitter permanently suspended the account of the former president, Donald J Trump. Although this final decision was provoked by Trump’s tweets before the riot at the Capitol building two days before, he had already been in trouble with social-media companies for a variety of messages – particularly those loudly claiming unproven electoral fraud in the presidential election.
This was the most high-profile intervention in the escalating involvement of social-media companies in what content can be shared on their platforms, sparking a debate about what should be done to combat misinformation on the web. Twitter currently has 1,500 employees dedicated to content review. Many are calling for tech companies to act even more stringently and to crack down harder on misinformation, while others argue that to do so is an infringement of people’s right to freedom of expression.
This has led to fears of a ‘reality crisis’ – that we can no longer tell fact from fiction as a society. This panic follows on from the issue of ‘fake news’ and whether it had any effect in influencing the 2016 US Presidential Election or the Brexit vote in the UK. In addition, scandals like the one concerning Cambridge Analytica have heightened fears that ordinary voters are susceptible to influence by dark forces.
Others worry about free speech and the new power of tech companies. Facebook, Twitter, Google and Amazon Web Services (the world’s biggest host of websites) have become a near-oligopoly on what can be seen and shared online. Are these still simply private companies, or does their market strength suggest they are, in fact, more like public utilities whose power needs to be considered in a different way?
DEBATE TEAMS:
Proposing the motion
Richmond upon Thames College
DEBATERS:
Teacher: Kasim Agpak
Opposing the motion
Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Faversham
DEBATERS:
Teacher: Tom Finn-Kelcey
JUDGES:
Pamela Dow
executive director of the Government Skills and Curriculum Unit
Steve Kelleher
founder, Alphaprobe consultancy; former SDP candidate for Mayor of London
Ellie Lee
professor of family and parenting research, University of Kent, Canterbury; director, Centre for Parenting Culture Studies
