Twitter is not a plane, train, or doctor
Plus, the day we didn't know would come
Not a doctor, not a bus
The CGO recently released new technology policy research on the timely topic of common carriage and social media regulation by Will Rinehart and CGO student research fellow Isaac Crosby. This three-page paper packs a punch.
Common carriage mandates equality of access for publicly available goods and services. Municipal bus systems, for example, are common carriers that must offer the same service and quality to anyone willing to pay for a ride. Doctors are also obligated to offer equal services to all their patients. As Will and Isaac explain, common carriage doesn’t fit so nicely as a framework for regulating social media.
Read the whole thing to digest their unique point: “Mandating a certain kind of product quality is not common carriage regulation. It is price regulation.” In other words, common carriage is price regulation. It's a paper well worth a read.
We didn’t know this day would come
Elon Musk and Twitter are dominating the tech policy discussion as the roller coaster continues. CGO scholars, including me, have written about public opinion toward Twitter (trust was already low), how it's more a coliseum than a public square, that it needs leadership not regulation, and that we shouldn't freak out about this whole thing.
The ride continues! Again, this is an opportune time to remind yourself and others that digital technologies are rarely static and governance is being figured out in real time. A free and open system allows for beneficial experimentation. At times it can sure feel bumpy, but that’s a feature, not a bug.
While they count the votes
Elections bring to mind an excellent paper from March 2022 out of our experimental economics lab, “Social Media, Misinformation, and Voting Decisions.”
How a five-page law inhibited 50 years of building
Finally, what doesn't NEPA regulate? Eli Dourado wrote a very helpful overview about NEPA outlining the many sectors of the economy it touches. If, like me, you're still getting up to speed on this environmental regulation that impacts technologies, definitely give his recent post a read. You will find it extremely helpful.