Journal
TELEVISION & NEW MEDIA
Volume 24, Issue 7, Pages 735-750Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1177/15274764221137245
Keywords
freedom of speech; search engines; media history; regulation; algorithmic expression; public sphere
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This article analyzes the ongoing debates surrounding search engine regulation and free speech, highlighting the overlook of key issues related to the editorial analogy and proposing an alternative framework that focuses on conflicts of expressive interest and the significance of participating in the public sphere during rapid technological and political economic transitions.
This article analyzes current debates over search engine regulation and free speech. In these debates, Google and other companies have relied on the editorial analogy: that search results are equivalent to editorial decisions, and thus cannot be regulated without violating freedom of speech. These debates largely focus on analogies to earlier media or the nature of algorithmic judgment. The paper argues that this framing misses key issues relevant to how we think about search engines (and algorithmic decisions in general) and freedom of speech. The paper examines the free speech debates that surrounded media in the 1930s and 1940s in order to: (1) clarify the stakes and politics of the editorial analogy being used today; (2) offer an alternate framing of the debate, that highlights conflicts of expressive interest and asks what it means to participate in the public sphere under conditions of rapid technological and political economic transition.
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