An effective way to squash foul content on social media

A couple of months ago, Spotify chief executive officer Daniel Elk found himself in a spot. No sooner had he signed on Joe Rogan, a wildly popular podcast host (allegedly paying over $100 million), than his employees were up in arms over transphobic comments made on his show. There was no question that the episode in question was offensive to the LGBTQ+ community—but Elk was worried about the free-speech implications of censoring this content despite its offensive nature.

In the pre-digital world, content was only distributed by companies that reviewed every last word before it was made available to the public. As they were liable for everything they put out, they employed large editorial teams to balance their need to report news with considerations of accuracy, decency and the law.

Digital platforms on the other hand never had to worry about oversight. From the early days of their existence, they were shielded from prosecution by intermediary liability protections.