Conclusion And Next Steps

The standards process is not a perfect or a quick fix of course: Developing standards is an extremely tedious process, and voluntary standards are only as strong as the weakest link. However, standards are a necessary ingredient in the innovation ecosystem that drives transparency, consensus, and due process via deliberate and thorough engagement with experts across the public and private sectors. The standards setting ecosystem also provides the digital services industry with a template (and existing infrastructure) for a robust, rules-based process for self-governance rather than requiring them to reinvent the wheel.

What is promising is that there have been scattered efforts to develop standards for social media companies. For example, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) is a collaboration between advertisers, agencies, and social media platforms which aims to “develop and implement global standards for digital advertising, including issues related to brand safety, ad fraud, and hate speech.”31

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) had a Content Moderation on Internet Platforms initiative which was designed to “help companies manage the complex and evolving landscape of content moderation on internet platforms, while promoting user safety, privacy, and free expression.”32 Finally, the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership, which is part of the World Economic Forum’s A Global Coalition for Digital Safety, has been developing best practices and assessments for digital service companies.33

These dispersed efforts are a good start but we need more. The move towards proper standards is about developing a sustained, robust, and comprehensive approach to create and implement measurements and best practices across the board. This is the direction we need to go for digital services more broadly, but the time is especially ripe for digital platforms like social media. In order to do this well, there are a few things at a high-level that are required:

1. The development of a list of key risks that have the need and potential to be effectively addressed by standards in the near future (taking on a risk-based model to ensure the scope and intent of the initiative is focused on the major consumer and communal welfare needs at the time). This could be done through an initial cross-sectoral working group, which would include digital platform companies, related technology companies, civil society, government, academia, and other topic-specific experts–for example, journalists;

2. The establishment of topic-specific consortia to address the identified risks or problems and, ideally, a standards body to house the consortia and other working groups focused on digital platform standards;

3. Companies to invest in standards leaders and delegations within their companies, which should include training for employees to engage effectively in the standards setting process;

4. Intentional and active engagement with academia, government, and civil society to ensure that multi stakeholder interests and ideas are represented throughout the standards process.

Luckily, these pieces have been coordinated countless times for other industries; we believe it is possible and within the interests of platform companies, governments, consumers, and civil society to make progress on this front. In fact, the Democracy and Internet Governance Initiative is already working with a number of stakeholders on first steps in setting up a more robust standards setting ecosystem.

We have reached a critical moment regarding the governance of digital platforms. Social media companies are no longer young and naive—and neither are their consumers. Standards offer a viable path forward to ensure we move the needle on governance of digital services, while paving the way for smart government intervention.

Endnotes

1 Heilweil, R. (2023, January 5). What is Generative AI, and why is it suddenly everywhere? Vox. Retrieved from https://www. vox.com/recode/2023/1/5/23539055/generative-ai-chatgpt-stable-diffusion-lensa-dall-e

2 Schultz, J. (2023, March 22). Analyzing the landscape of solutions to social media’s harms. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Retrieved from https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/analyzing-landscape-solutions-socialmedias-harms

3 Ibid.

4 Feiner, L. (2023, January 23). Apple ramped up lobbying spending in 2022, outpacing tech peers. CNBC. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/23/apple-ramped-up-lobbying-spending-in-2022-outpacing-tech-peers.html

5 Rosen, D. (2022, September 19). Truth social’s censorship, terms of service defy free speech promises. Public Citizen. Retrieved from https://www.citizen.org/news/truth-socials-censorship-terms-of-service-defy-free-speech-promises

6 Analyzing the landscape of solutions to social media’s harms

7 Ruby, D. (2023, April 12). Social media users in the world - (2023 demographics). Demand Sage. Retrieved from https:// www.demandsage.com/social-media-users

8 For example, Facebook published an article in 2020 about a third party audit conducted by EY of their Community Standards Enforcement. More here: https://about.fb.com/news/2020/08/independent-audit-of-enforcement-reportmetrics/

9 Sloane, M. (2021, March 17). The algorithmic auditing trap. Medium. Retrieved from https://onezero.medium.com/thealgorithmic-auditing-trap-9a6f2d4d461d

10 Bell, K. (2022, September 8). Meta dissolves team responsible for discovering ‘potential harms to society’ in its own products. Engadget. Retrieved from https://www.engadget.com/meta-responsible-innovation-teamdisbanded-194852979.html

11 Belanger, A. (2023, March 14). Report: Microsoft cut a key AI ethics team. Ars Technica. Retrieved from https:// arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/03/amid-bing-chat-controversy-microsoft-cut-an-ai-ethics-team-report-says/

12 Dixon, S. (2023, March 14). Topic: Facebook. Statista. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/topics/751/facebook/

13 Kelley, H., & Guskin, E. (2021, December 25). Americans widely distrust Facebook, TikTok and Instagram with their data, poll finds. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/12/22/tech-trustsurvey/

14 Ray, J. (2021, November 22). Young people rely on social media, but don’t trust it. Gallup.com. Retrieved from https:// news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/357446/young-people-rely-social-media-don-trust.aspx

15 https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/01/13/the-state-of-online-harassment/

16 Karim, F., Oyewande, A. A., Abdalla, L. F., Chaudhry Ehsanullah, R., & Khan, S. (2020). Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A Systematic Review. Cureus, 12(6), e8627. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.8627

17 https://www.nab.org/bigtech/

18 Rosenblum, D. (2007). What Anyone Can Know: The Privacy Risks of Social Networking Sites. Security & Privacy, IEEE. 5. 40-49. 10.1109/MSP.2007.75.

19 Merchant, N. (2022, September 13). US: Russia spent $300m to covertly influence world politics. AP NEWS. Retrieved from https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-biden-politics-presidential-elections03d0ae84fb34833b78b1753d0a9602db

20 Hayns, S. (2020, August). The importance of setting standards to support environment bill delivery. Wildlife and Countryside Link. Retrieved from https://www.wcl.org.uk/the-importance-of-setting-standards.asp

21 About Us. ISO. (2023, April 3). Retrieved from https://www.iso.org/about-us.html

22 Wheeler, T. (2023, March 8). The UK and EU establish positions as regulatory first movers while the US watches. Brookings. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2023/03/08/the-uk-and-eu-establish-positionsas-regulatory-first-movers-while-the-us-watches/

23 (2022, October 11). 3 Ways Technology Standards Can Benefit Your Organization. IEEE Standards Association. Retrieved from https://standards.ieee.org/beyond-standards/industry/technology-industry/3-ways-technology-standards-canbenefit-your-organization/

24 Nieva, R. (2023, February 7). Google debuts a CHATGPT rival called Bard in limited release. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2023/02/06/google-bard/?sh=913bbd4152d6

25 3 Ways Technology Standards Can Benefit Your Organization

26 Deepfake Detection Challenge: AWS and New Academics Join, Initial Dataset released. Meta AI. (2019, October 21). Retrieved from https://ai.facebook.com/blog/deepfake-detection-challenge-aws-and-new-academics-join/

27 United States pharmacopeia celebrates 200 years of building trust in medicines, supplements and foods. United States Pharmacopeia (USP). (2020, January 6). Retrieved from https://www.usp.org/news/usp-celebrates-200-years-ofbuilding-trust-in-medicines-supplements-and-foods

28 FDA. (2019, April 24). Part I: The 1906 Food and Drugs Act and its enforcement. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/changes-science-law-and-regulatory-authorities/part-i1906-food-and-drugs-act-and-its-enforcement

29 Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, former Senior Counselor to Chairman at the FCC Phil Verveer, and former Chief Counsel of the US DOJ Antitrust Division Gene Kimmelman have a proposal to start a government agency to regulate digital platforms. Read more: https://shorensteincenter.org/new-digital-realities-tom-wheeler-phil-verveer-genekimmelman/

30 Miesen, M., & Manley, L. (2020, November). Building a 21st Century Congress: Improving STEM Policy Advice in the Emerging Technology Era. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Retrieved from: https://www.belfercenter. org/publication/why-us-congress-and-stem-experts-must-work-together

31 Advertisers, W. F. of. (n.d.). Global Alliance for Responsible Media - About GARM. WFA. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from https://wfanet.org/leadership/garm/about-garm

32 Content moderation on internet platforms. SASB. (2022, July 6). Retrieved from https://www.sasb.org/standards/ process/projects/content-moderation-on-internet-platforms-research-project/

33 Digital Trust and Safety Partnership. Digital Trust & Safety Partnership. (n.d.). Retrieved April 13, 2023, from https:// dtspartnership.org/