The Rise of the Compliant Speech Platform

Deciding what people can say and do on the internet is increasingly becoming, in corporate-speak, a “compliance” function.

Whether that reframing of speech governance will be a net positive for internet users or society remains to be seen.

The shift toward compliance-oriented governance of online speech is driven by laws like the EU ’s Digital Services Act .

To comply with the DSA, companies like Meta and Alphabet have opened their doors and their databases to sweeping annual audits.

The DSA spells out relevant areas of “risk,” including such vast and potentially competing societal priorities as “freedom of expression” and protecting the “rights of the child” But you can’t see what the affected posts actually said.

Governments can, in the guise of regulating “systems,” easily cross the line into simply telling platforms to suppress lawful speech.

DSA compliance is expensive, pushing trust and safety resources out of substantive decision-making about user posts.

The second concern is about competition and missed opportunities to evolve past our current internet ecosystem.