Kevin Esparza

Professor Ryan Chang

Writing 39C: Argument and Research

4 June 2022

Abstract

My paper analyzes the attempts of mitigating the detriment of social media on female teens’ mental health. Many proposed solutions to this problem are not effective due to social media’s widespread usage amongst the younger population. Although the users of social media platforms could potentially help themselves by practicing mindfulness, ultimately the best solutions come from holding big social platform companies, like Meta, responsible for the wellbeing of their users. One way this could be done is by reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, because, as of right now, social media companies cannot be sued for what they decide to take down or keep up. If lawmakers were to fix this outdated legislation, there is hope for overall mental health in teens to go up.

What is social comparison? What is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act? What can users do to minimize deterioration of mental health? What can companies do? My paper argues that with increased accountability placed onto social media platforms on what is posted, the mental health of teens will improve.

Proposed Solutions to Mental Health Deterioration due to Social Media

The problems that social media causes amongst teens are evident. For one, social media promotes the isolation of teens, but there is a common belief that online social interaction can directly replace real life interactions, which is, in reality, not equivalent. The isolation of youth has been altering what they value. This can be observed through how adolescents try to feel validated through social media engagement, such as likes, comments, and shares. In addition, teen girls have exhibited the most detriment which stems from an older stigma that the value of a woman is directly tied to her looks. The argument that social media actually aids societal mental health by minimizing in-person socialization within the society lacks to acknowledge the fact that humans are social beings and when real-life interactions are taken away from people, it is more likely for them to develop mental illness. Platforms, like Instagram, should try to mitigate these issues, but rather mitigating them they seem to further perpetuate these problems through the algorithms that Instagram uses. As a matter of fact, Instagram permits its users to post almost anything they want. Yes, the platform has guidelines, but these guidelines only take posts down if they are overtly or explicitly problematic. This means that the users of social media are exposed and vulnerable to issues that the algorithm believes their users want to see, but, in reality, are posts that could be triggering (like photos that overtly promote unhealthy behaviors, or photos that push a fake and negative narrative) to the users. Mental illness not only has detrimental effects to the individual alone, but can potentially manifest into a problem that affects society. In order to fix the mental health crisis among the youth, reformation of already existing legislation, like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, must occur because other solutions will not fix this problem since it has already evolved to be so deep.

Recently, there have been some attempts on social platforms’ end to address the problems that they themselves promote. For example, Facebook and Instagram have recently launched a feature in which the users can disable the likes of their posts to be displayed to others. Reporter Allyson Chiu points out that Facebook is promoting the change as a matter of “giving people more control.” Although this is a move towards the right direction on Meta’s end, experts are still split on whether this action will actually help mitigate the issues of mental

health in teens.

Proponents of hiding likes argue that it will mitigate social comparison, which has been noted in many studies to be part of the issue of bad mental health. This makes sense, as the users who use social media to compare themselves with others will often find people who they think are more attractive than them, more successful than them, or overall just happier than them. Critics of Meta’s attempt at mitigating the mental health crisis by removing likes argue that likes and other interactions have already been embedded in social media. Some even go as far to say that likes are the “currency” of social media. Essentially what the critics are trying to argue is that the problem of social comparison has gone too far for the removal of likes to be the solution and social platforms must do something more drastic in order to fix this situation. Another issue is the fact that displaying likes on people’s posts still remains as the default setting of Instagram. This means that users must seek out disabling their likes from showing on their posts. Another issue that is noticeable on social media is that users can only disable their own likes from being portrayed on social media, but they cannot disable likes from being portrayed on posts from others. This does not make sense on Instagram’s end if the goal is to mitigate feelings of negativity through social comparison because in order to actually fix the problem, then they should have taken into account that comparison goes both ways and knowing that others get more likes can still cause problems.

One way to have social media companies to be held accountable for what their users post is by the reform of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Originally, Section 230 was created to encourage tech companies to get rid of sensitive and offensive content. Congress’s focus when enacting this legislation, as professor of political science Sara L. Ziegler points out, was to “attempt to prevent minors from gaining accessto sexually explicit materials on the Internet.” Although it was written with good intentions, there are many problems with Section 230. Unfortunately, as Professor of law Danielle Keats Citron and legal scholar Mary Anne Franks state, Section 230 has now been extrapolated beyond what it states to protect the companies from many problems, including illegal activity and “harmful content” (2). Another logistical problem with Section 230 is that it was written before social media existed, so it never accounted for the fact that social media is now how many people gain their information. This is interesting to note because as of now social media is the main beneficiary of Section 230. As a matter of fact, Marguerite Reardon mentions that Senator Richard Blumenthal openly critiqued Section 230, saying that no one can sue Facebook and how immune it is to recourse. Now, companies like Meta are protected thanks to Section 230 from anything to do with what people post on their accounts. This means that social media platforms are left with no incentive to do what is right and prevent problematic posts from existing on their platform which includes those of which contribute to the worsening state of mental health in America.

Citron and Franks propose many different solutions to amend Section 230. One of the solutions in which Citron and Franks proposed is to change the word “information” with “speech” (21). This is a small change that keeps the integrity of the section almost identical to the original, but makes the law more exclusive as to what exactly it protects. Speech, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the ability to express thoughts, whereas information is what is conveyed or represented. All speech is information, but not all information is speech. This means that images on social media that are not necessarily classified as speech would no longer be protected by Section 230, meaning that social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram would be held responsible for triggering images.

Some may argue that altering Section 230 is repressing the rights Americans have under the first amendment. The first amendment, however, protects American individuals from censorship from the government. By changing the word “information” with “speech,” it would be up to the discretion of social media platforms on whether or not to take down the posts in which they find harmful, not the government. Since the platforms themselves would be liable if harmful information was floating around that was not protected by the proposed amended Section 230, they would be incentivized to take these posts down.

Another potential argument with the amendment of Section 230 is that there could be a decline in innovation now that platforms would have to deal with new obstacles relating to financial losses. For example, social media platforms would now have to keep an eye on more things that could get them in trouble, which will ultimately cost more for them to continue their services. Although this is true, there are ways they could minimize the costs due to the reform. One way they could cut costs is to have more ads on their sites. Another way is by implementing guideline algorithms that analyze posts before they are even posted in order to check for problematic things in the images. The costs would be inevitable for the companies and it would affect the user one way or another, but the benefits from the reform would outweigh the costs. The change of “information” to “speech” would be one of the most beneficial solutions without changing the original section too radically. With this reform, Meta would be held accountable for the effects of negative posts and would be strongly encouraged to remove these harmful posts that ultimately have contributed to the detriment of teen mental health.

A solution that professor of law Nathaniel Persily and professor of politics Joshua A. Tucker suggests that one way to fix many problems of social media is by allowing independent research. Persily proposed the legislation because it will let platforms know that their algorithms are being observed and studied. This way, if it is seen that the algorithms are pushing problematic posts, third party independent researchers can expose them. This solution however, is flawed in the sense that making the raw data of social media platforms available for independent research also exacerbates the chances of data leaks to occur. This has the possibility of being detrimental to many people. In this case, the benefits of having the algorithms being monitored in order to minimize the harmful posts that contribute to bad mental health is outweighed by the potential danger of major data leaks.

Another way to mitigate the issues with social media and mental health issues is by the users themselves practicing mindfulness. In order to fix this problem, certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach Merecy Livingston argues that the users must consider why they check social media to begin with. Livingston interviews Dr. Logan Jones, a psychologist and founder of NYC Therapy + Wellness, and he points out that many people use social media when they are in a situation where they feel uncomfortable, but this is definitionally what addiction is. So, because of this, Livingston suggests that users of social platforms should ask themselves questions, like “What are you potentially avoiding or using social media to escape from?” and “How is social media making you feel? Are you comparing yourself to others or using it to judge others?” and “Do you rely on social media for your self esteem?” Although this is not as effective and would not have as good results as reforming Section 230, it is much easier to implement if the users themselves have the willpower to do so. The problem, of course, is that many do not actually have the willpower to stop using social media in a not healthy way. The best solution to this problem would have to be one in which companies and legislature are in charge of the wellbeing of their users, not one that places the burden onto the users itself.

The problems with social media have now been deeply embedded into society. This means that in order to fix these problems, a real solution that will be drastic must be put in place. If the companies do not do this, then the people who use social media themselves can take these problems into their own hands, but the solutions that they can implement, although much more feasible, are not as impactful as the ones that force companies to have accountability. Of course, reforming Section 230 would not fix the problem fully, as what is considered triggering is different from person to person, but it would certainly minimize the detriment as users of social media would not be exposed to so much idolized and fake content. Ultimately, the best solution for social media’s detrimental effects to mental health involve the amendment of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act because it is both feasible and beneficial without much cost when compared to other options.

Works Cited

Chiu, Allyson. “Will hiding likes on Instagram and Facebook improve users’ mental health? We asked experts.” The Washington Post. 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/likes-facebook-instagram-mental-health/2021/05/27/132073d0-be55-11eb-9c90-731aff7d9a0d_story.html

Citron, Danielle Keats, and Mary Anne Franks. “The Internet as a Speech Machine and Other Myths Confounding Section 230 Speech Reform.” Scholarly Commons at Boston University School of Law, 2020, https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1833&context=faculty_scholarship

The main point of this debate was around Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which is an attempt to get tech companies to get rid of any offensive content on their platforms. The writers then discuss how Section 230 can be weaponized and used to the company’s benefit instead of protecting the general public, as it was intended to. Many different groups and companies have things to say about Section 230. For example, “enthusiasts” of the section say that “it's even better than the first amendment,” but others argue that it must be changed now that it is the 21st century and more people have access to the internet than before. This paper cites many other people, mainly congressmen, senators, and others involved in legislation. They also provide a list of solutions in order to fix the problems with Section 230.

"information, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, March 2022, www.oed.com/view/Entry/95568. Accessed 5 June 2022.

Livingston, Mercey. “How to beat your social media addiction, according to a therapist.” CNET. 1 Dec. 2019, https://www.cnet.com/health/the-right-way-to-beat-your-social-media-addiction-according-to-a-therapist/

Persliy, Nathaniel and Joshua A. Tucker. “How to fix social media? Start with independent research.” Brookings, 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-to-fix-social-media-start-with-independent-research/

The main point of this debate is that in order to start fixing the problems that social media prompts (which is a long list of many issues such as misinformation, eating disorders, etc) is by allowing independent research on social media. The writers argue that the companies keep the “raw data” to themselves and do not share it with independent researchers. They propose a solution, the Platform Transparency and Accountability Act, that will essentially help outside researchers gain data without “endangering user privacy.” This would help increase transparency with the intentions of social media platforms and ties into my research of teens on social media because the algorithm social media promotes definitely is tied into this issue.

Reardon, Marguerite. “Section 230: How it shields Facebook and why Congress wants changes.” CNET. 6 Oct. 2021, https://www.cnet.com/news/politics/section-230-how-it-shields-facebook-and-why-congress-wants-changes/

"speech, n.1." OED Online, Oxford University Press, March 2022. www.oed.com/view/Entry/186128. Accessed 5 June 2022.