The debate over whether social media platforms should be held accountable for ensuring the content they carry is “truthful” continues to rage.
As American Enterprise Institute (AEI) adjunct scholar Bronwyn Howell notes, fact-checking is costly.
As such, internet platforms are attaching warnings where there is any doubt about content. Should broadcasters do the same, whether online or on the air?
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Howell notes, “While one might hope that regulatory and voluntary codes of conduct mean that the traditional media is less prone to circulating and amplifying misinformation (including that emanating from quasi-scientific reports on complex and controversial subjects), it is not clear that this is the case.”
For example, Howell points to the traditional media’s handling of reports on mobile phone and internet bundles by the Finnish consultancy Rewheel/research.
She says that Rewheel/research’s Digital Fuel Monitor reports comparing connectivity competitiveness and prices between countries “have for many years provided grist for the mills of media outlets on both sides of the Atlantic because of their repeated findings that U.S. and Canadian wireless prices are ‘exorbitant’ and ‘among the world’s most expensive.'”
But, she notes, “Uncritical republication of the headline findings by the mainstream media has led to the widespread popular perception that the headline-grabbing claims are true. The result has been significant consumer pressure on regulators and politicians to respond.”
However, Howell finds, “A simple Google search reveals that there have long been significant concerns about Rewheel’s methodology, rendering the reports’ findings misleading at best and blatantly untruthful at worst: in other words, equally deserving of a warning for readers as politically questionable tweets are.”
In traditional media, journalistic ethics, Howell says, “require disclosures when free trials or samples are provided as source materials. The authors and readers are aware of the potential for bias. Was the hotel room supplied to the travel journalist the best available or the run-of-the-house version? With freemium content, the relevant question is: ‘Are the results being shown in the most dramatic fashion to induce purchase?’ Is it reliable information or simply an advertisement?”
While it may be asking a lot of the media to write knowledgably about highly technical and scientific work, Howell concludes that it is “definitely reasonable to expect a quick check of the business models of sources and couching any editorial commentary with warnings to alert readers rather than blindly republishing headlines.”
She says, “Consumers should expect the same standards from all media providers — traditional and social — when it comes to the truthfulness of their content. Regulators and developers of industry conduct codes should be cognizant of the risks associated with freemium content too.”
Bronwyn Howell is an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on the regulation, development, and deployment of new technologies and the use of technology in the health sector. Dr. Howell is a faculty member of the Wellington School of Business and Government at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, a senior research fellow at the Public Utilities Research Center at the University of Florida, a board member and secretary of the International Telecommunications Society, an associate editor of the journal Telecommunications Policy, and a research principal at the Institute for Technology and Network Economics.
