Tyler Poyer

CST 300
October 10, 2023
Poyer 1
The Social Media Dilemma

How would the world look today without the presence of social media? Everyone knows

that social media has become a huge part of our daily lives. Social media is used to stay in tune

with other peoples’ lives and communicate with people all over the world. Social media has also

recently become a source of news for major world events. Social media has become such an

important aspect in everyones’ lives that it's hard to imagine a world without it. However,

concerns of addiction have begun to arise all throughout the world. So many people are addicted

to social media to the point where it's negatively affecting their lives. Some consumer protection

agencies are advocating to place restrictions on social media in order to protect people. However,

free speech advocates protest against this as it could lead to the loss of free speech. This has

created a difficult issue, should the government step in and regulate social media?

The Issue

Social media by itself is not a bad thing, but it does create some problems in our society.

In order to fight for users, many companies are forced to make their platforms as addicting as

possible. This has led to people spending increasing amounts of time on social media platforms.

According to backlinko.com, “Globally, the average time a person spends on social media a day

is 2 hours 25 minutes / 145 minutes”(Backlinko.com, 2023). This amount of time per day

equates to about a month of time spent every year. Time spent on social media has only been

increasing since the past and is projected to continue increasing in the future. Spending this much

time on social media can have negative effects on people’s mental states. Some people who

spend excess time online suffer to communicate in real life. Social media has also created an era

where personal information is no longer private. Many people are willing to provide any
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information about themselves when creating an account. This data is often sold to companies

around the world. According to Maitland, “While children and teenagers represent the largest

Internet user groups, for the most part they do not know how to protect their personal

information on the Web and are the most vulnerable to cyber-crimes related to breaches of

information privacy [2, 3].”(Maitland, 2020). When people give up all their personal information

online it makes them more vulnerable to being hacked. Most of the people who are at risk of

these attacks are unaware of the dangers of providing so much personal information online.

People who use social media for news are also at risk to seein misinformation. Social media

platforms are designed to elevate any post that has the most interactions. So anyone could boost

the visibility of their post with artificial interaction to force more people to see it. Or simply a

false statement could be upvoted by real people making everyone think the statement is true. As

social media platforms become the news sources, it will be harder to discern what is true or not.

Overall, social media is not a bad thing but it creates issues by being highly addicting, putting

people at risk to cyber attacks and allowing the spread of misinformation.

Stakeholder Analysis

Free speech advocates are a group of people that believe every person has the right to

express their opinion without being restricted from the government. These people want to uphold

the first amendment of the constitution to be able to speak freely without being controlled. If the

government begins to restrict what people can say where, it can lead to a slippery slope. It would

be difficult to determine exactly where to place the restrictions and on who. Many people would

be against any forms of social media regulation that affects them as it would limit their ability to

communicate with others. Regulating social media may also cause stress on the economy. Many

businesses operate purely through social media to advertise or work directly with clients. Placing
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social media restrictions could potentially put these companies out of business or cause people to

lose their jobs. Lastly, if regulations were placed on social media, they would be difficult to

enforce. In the past, the government attempted to prohibit the drinking of alcohol but most

people continued to drink. People would quickly develop ways to circumvent government

restrictions on social media. Social media platforms also operate globally which would make it

hard to determine who the regulations would apply to. Therefore, free speech advocates would

be most against regulating social media because some people would lose the ability to

communicate with others, the first amendment would become weakened and businesses would

struggle to advertise.

Consumer protection groups are the ones that would benefit most from social media

regulations. Various government agencies are tasked with protecting consumers from scammers

and other malicious threats on the internet. Protecting millions of people that are connected to the

internet is not easy to do. Therefore, limiting access to social media platforms would greatly help

these agencies protect consumers. Access to social media and the internet has created a

generation that has more access to information than any other human before. Unfortunately, a lot

of this information has the potential to be biased or misleading. Because of social media, it has

never been easier to spread wrong information. Whether intentional or not, any social media post

has the power to be seen by the whole world immediately. Social media platforms are designed

to gain as much information about you as possible. A lot of companies make money by selling

user data so these companies have incentive to get as much data as possible about you. This

means that anything you post onto the internet is there for everyone to see. Having less access to

social media would increase your overall privacy and data protection. Social media has also

altered the mental state of most people who use it. These platforms build a dependency on you,
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forcing you to check them often so you don't miss out on anything new (Dalomba, 2022). Being

addicted to social media can make you vulnerable to scammers and other threats. The

implementation of social media regulations would result in social media companies being forced

to improve their security. Social media platforms would have to become more accountable of

what happens on their platform to comply with government regulations. This would create a

safer environment for consumers with more safety features in place. In summary, consumer

protection groups would benefit the most from social media regulation by increasing the

accountability of social media companies, increasing privacy and inhibiting the spread of

misinformation.

Argument Question

Should social media access be restricted despite the problems this would cause?

Arguments

Free speech advocates believe that individual rights are important and should not be

violated. The egoism ethical framework states that the self should be the highest priority in

making decisions(Westacott, 2019). That a persons’ actions and goals should be done to benefit

themself. An example of this would be an individual who chooses to invest into an oil company.

While this action may contribute to harming the environment, the individual would benefit from

the profits and would deem this action as morally acceptable. Most people tend to only think

about how doing an action will affect themself. Under this framework it would be unethical to

restrict access to social media. Doing so would negatively affect happiness. Similarly, it would

be unethical to force people to stop watching as much television. Even if a person watches

enough television to be a detriment to themselves’, they should have the ability to make
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decisions for themselves. Under the egoism framework, anyone would agree to this as it does not

affect anyone else.

On the other hand, consumer protection groups could also potentially benefit from social

media restrictions. The utilitarianism ethical framework states that decisions should be made that

benefit the greatest number of people (conciseencyclopedia.org, 2022). For example, it could be

seen as ethical for a government to demolish a house in order to build a highway in its place.

While the homeowner would be upset, many people would benefit from the highway resulting in

a greater outcome. Under this ethical framework, restricting access to social media would be

justified as it would benefit the population overall. Even though many people would not be

happy with this decision, government agencies would be able to protect consumers more

effectively. During elections or public crises, social media can be a tool to spread misinformation

(Endadmin, 2023). Misinformation during these times can cause negative effects to the overall

society. Regulating social media could hinder the spread of misinformation especially during

critical times such as a public health crisis. This would allow people to stay informed with

accurate information and benefit many people. Therefore, under the utilitarianism framework, it

would be more ethical to regulate social media as it benefits a greater number of people.

My position

There are many reasons for and against the regulation of social media. Despite the

benefits, more people would be happier overall if the government did not interfere. The

government should not regulate social media as it would reduce individual freedoms. It is more

important for people to be happy and make decisions for their own benefits rather than be forced.

Similar to smoking cigarettes, people should have the freedom of choice to do what they enjoy

despite potential consequences. Regulating social media would also be a difficult task to
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perform. People who want to use social media would find ways to circumvent any barriers. As

social media grows, it becomes more of a necessity to use as people need it to communicate with

the entire world. Taking this away from people would cause a lot of negative effects especially

on businesses who operate in or alongside social media. Therefore, even though there are many

benefits to regulating social media, there are also many negative effects that outweigh the

potential gains.

Social media has become an essential tool in our daily lives to communicate with the

world. Despite its usefulness, social media can bring unwanted negative effects. But at the same

time, choosing to regulate social media can also cause negative effects. Under the egoism

framework, it would be more ethical to not regulate social media as people should have the

freedom to make their own choices. While under the utilitarianism framework, it would be more

ethical to enforce social media regulations as that would benefit the greatest amount of people.

Taking into account both sides of the argument, social media should not be regulated. This would

cause as many problems as it would solve while also making the average person unhappy.

Perhaps a more complex solution could alleviate both sides of the argument. Until then, social

media should remain unregulated.

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References

Barrett-Maitland, N., & Lynch, J. (2020, February 5). Social Media, ethics and the privacy

paradox. IntechOpen. https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/70973

Dalomba, F., About the Author: Frances Dalomba, Author:, A. the, Regan, G., Rosen,

D. K., & Team, L. B. (2022, March 1). Pros and cons of Social Media. Lifespan.

https://www.lifespan.org/lifespan-living/social-media-good-bad-and-ugly

D.says:, J., Deansays:, B., Karlottasays:, T., McEvoysays:, S., & Andreasays: (2023,

March 27). How many people use Social Media in 2023? (65+ statistics).

Backlinko. https://backlinko.com/social-media-users

Endadmin. (2023, April 17). The Pros and cons of regulation social media. ENDURANCE.

https://thinkendurance.com/pros-and-cons-of-regulating-social-media/

Ethical theory: Utilitarianism. The Concise Encyclopedia of Business Ethics. (2022,

August 8). https://conciseencyclopedia.org/entries/ethical-theory-utilitarianism/

Susskind, J. (2022, July 22). How to make a better system for regulating social media.

Time. https://time.com/6199565/regulate-social-media-platform-reduce-risks/

Westacott, E. (2019, October 12). What is ethical egoism?. ThoughtCo.

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-ethical-egoism-3573630