In the days leading up to and following this election, Facebook has been called lots of things — “a website,” “an internet company,” “a major player in the media universe,” “a strange new class of media outlet,” a “tech behemoth,” a “cesspool of nonsense.” Vox cut to the chase, calling on Facebook to “admit that it is, in fact, a media company” observing “that the design of its news feed inherently involves making editorial decisions, and that it has a responsibility to make those decisions responsibly.”
Even though Facebook continues to deny its role as part of the media — “News and media are not the primary things people do on Facebook,” Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook response on Monday, “so I find it odd when people insist we call ourselves a news or media company in order to acknowledge its importance.” — some 44 percent of Americans now use Facebook as their primary source of news, according to Pew research. In a series of tweets the day after the election, New York Times columnist Zeynep Tufekci wrote, linking to journalist Joshua Benton at Nieman Lab, “Facebook’s algorithm is central to how news & information is consumed in the world today, and no historian will write about 2016 without it.”
Whether or not we deem it to be a media organization, Facebook will not, in the foreseeable future, wear that badge. But as a “new source of journalism” (a term that’s recently cropped up), should it be expected to meet Fourth Estate obligations? And, if so, how does it do so responsibly? And if they refuse to, should we tax Facebook and other platforms to fund quality journalism?
Should we tax Facebook and other platforms to fund quality journalism?
The foundations of the Fourth Estate, fortified by the First Amendment, rest, in large part, on the idea of checks and balances. In quick summary, the press is, in theory, watchdog, civic forum, and agenda-setter, holding elected officials to account and bound by longstanding liability laws. In the words of Joseph Pulitzer, the press “should always fight for progress and reform; never tolerate injustice or corruption; always fight demagogues of all parties…always oppose privileged classes and public plunderer; never lack sympathy with the poor; always remain devoted to the public welfare…”