The Internet and Social Media In the early days of the Internet it was widely assumed that this new Internet would allow a new kind of freedom for ordinary citizens to make their voices heard. Another hoped for advance was that it would allow for democratic voices to more easily organize and make their collective voices heard. A dramatic example of this is the Arab Spring in 2010 when citizens within several Arab countries, beginning in Tunisia and spreading to other Middle Eastern countries, such as Egypt, united to force democratic changes and eliminate rampant corruption in their countries. The Internet did help achieve major reforms in some Arab countries, but these reforms were short lived and the net impact of the Arab Spring is very mixed. Another good example of how social media was used to organize citizenry around a shared objective is the Euro-Maiden revolution in Ukraine in 2013-2014. A post on Facebook, for citizens to meet at the Maiden statue in central Kiev to protest the pro-Russian stance of the Yanukovych administration, started a massive protest. Abut three months later these protests ended in a violent takeover of their capitol and other government buildings and the overthrow of the existing government (oops, it was an internationally recognized democratically elected government). An interesting question to ponder is whether social media activity such as this could ever go viral in today’s era of tech giants, who have unprecedented power and influence, and government surveillance of social media. One wonders whether any citizen activity that goes against the government could ever go viral on today’s Internet. Currently, the Supreme Court is considering two cases regarding the behavior of tech giants such as Google, Facebook and X. Both Texas and Florida passed laws that prohibit large tech companies from blocking or removing content based on user views, or banning political candidates. These two Red leaning states are concerned about bias against conservative views, but the larger issue is the power of tech companies and their ability to bias the public sphere, no matter the direction of that bias. The Supreme Court case was brought by large tech companies opposed to the laws enacted by Florida and Texas. A major issue is the First Amendment right to free speech by tech companies. If the government were censoring content posted by citizens on social media, this would be an obvious violation of a citizen’s free speech rights. But large social media companies also have free speech rights and, as private companies, they would normally enjoy the same free speech privileges. The Texas and Florida laws appear to violate these rights of the tech companies, hence the tech companies appeal to the Supreme Court. The overriding issue is whether these tech companies should be treated as private companies with free speech rights, or are they a new breed of company that has overarching influence on the public sphere and therefore should be treated differently than a private citizen/company. There is some precedence in the digital era for changing the rules for tech companies. For example, Internet Service Providers (e.g. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast), that were once regulated as common carriers subject to the strict rules of Title II of the Communications Act, had their designation changed so that they did not have the same requirements concerning rates and access. Should there be some change as to how big tech social media companies are classified. Here are my thoughts. Go to Part Two for the rest of the article.