Harmful but Newsworthy? Assessing Newsworthiness on Social Media

In 2016 Facebook received widespread global criticism for removing the iconic ‘Napalm Girl’ photo for violating its rules on child nudity. To remedy that concern, Facebook introduced a general ‘newsworthiness allowance’ to be applied to some content on the platform even though it technically violates a rule.  The ‘rarely applied’, ad hoc and ex post facto exemption has since been used in a range of cases to exempt violating speech—including violating speech by political figures. But should a social media platform allow speech that violates a rule to remain on the platform because it meets some threshold for ‘newsworthiness’? We argue that social media platforms should not apply such exemptions. First, violating or potentially violating speech, including speech by political figures, should not receive an exemption; indeed, if anything influential political figures should be subject to enhanced scrutiny by platforms to ensure rule-compliance, given their potential to cause harm. Any public interest in the violating content of political figures can be met through traditional news reporting and non-violating discussions concerning such content on social media platforms. Second, a better approach is to include any ‘newsworthiness’ public interest exemption in specific rules (such as journalistic reporting, condemnation, satire, and so forth). This principled and rules-based approach better promotes the values of legality and better protects valuable speech.

For more information, contact Ricki-Lee Gerbrandt (<r.gerbrandt@ucl.ac.uk).