Members of the Georgetown community joined the McCourt School’s Tech & Public Policy program for a discussion about the future of free speech on the internet with social media advocate and Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) reviewed what could be a landmark case for the tech industry — Gonzalez v. Google LLC. The case focuses on whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields internet platforms from liability for hosting and moderating user content.
The McCourt School of Public Policy’s Tech & Public Policy (TPP) program hosted social media advocate and Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen for a discussion on the impact SCOTUS’s ruling on this and several other cases could have on the future of the internet.
Following an introduction from Tech & Public Policy Fellow Rachel Bogdan (MPP-E’24), TPP program Director Michelle De Mooy and Haugen focused first on the harms of social media.
When analyzing the data on teenage mental health and social media, Haugen found that “people who were socially isolated were the most negatively impacted by social media because they had no other interactions or information sources outside of what they were seeing online.” Her organization Beyond the Screen contends that “places that have more community fabric —parks, community centers, fraternal orders, coffee shops, bars — have healthier people because individuals have another network for coming...
"Albo has just been honoured by TIME magazine, named among the 100 most influential figures in the world -- a recognition celebrating his transformative leadership and global impact as Prime Minis...