THE PROBLEM OF CUMULATIVELY HARMFUL SPEECH

Wednesday, November 19

To be held on Zoom

Start 10:30 am ET / 3:30 pm GMT

End 12:45 pm ET / 5:45 pm GMT

The purpose of this roundtable is to discuss what social media platforms should do about cumulatively harmful speech, defined broadly as speech that becomes harmful when aggregated and algorithmically amplified. There is substantial disagreement on how to conceptualize this category, and how to determine empirically what speech belongs to it. There is also substantial disagreement on the appropriate remedies, such as demotion, and whether such remedies raise free speech concerns.

This event will bring together a small number of social scientists, lawyers, philosophers, Oversight Board members and staff, and industry professionals, with expertise across a range of content areas (from hate speech to incitement to self-harm content to health and electoral misinformation). The first hour will grapple with the conceptual and empirical issues; after a short break, we will spend the second hour discussing the normative questions about how platforms should respond.