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Keywords

government regulation, misinformation, disinformation, information disorder, social media, internet regulation, federal reserve, free speech, technology

Disciplines

American Politics | Communications Law | First Amendment | Mass Communication | Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Social Influence and Political Communication | Social Media

Abstract

With the invention of the internet providing newfangled methods of spreading information around the world, misinformation has also found home in these pathways, disrupting the general public’s ability to discern fact from fiction and creating divides in society. Regulation must be enacted to stop the effects of misinformation, but the efforts of technology companies and the general public have been insufficient thus far. Regulatory control of the internet and its content should be the responsibility of the government, based on their constitutional right to intervene under certain circumstances and the fact that previous efforts by other parties to mitigate misinformation have been unsuccessful. More so, control should be ceded to a quasi-governmental entity so that regulation efforts are insulated against short-term political pressures, which could interject bias into internet regulation, and so that the demands of competing interest groups like Congress, social media companies, and the general public are considered.

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