Protect the Filter Bubbles

Emphasizing User Speech Rights in Algorithmically Curated Online Forums

Abstract

In 2018, Knight v. Trump sparked discussion about the boundaries between government and citizen speech on social media. Some scholars argued that the courts erred in their decision to characterize the speech in question as government speech. Others argued that the court decided correctly and claimed that the use of forum analysis was necessary to protect both the health of our democracy and the First Amendment rights of social media users. Within the context of algorithmic curation of social media feeds, this article argues that (1) social media platforms are not designated public forums due to the algorithmic curation of online user speech, (2) due to this, the public forum doctrine should not have been applied to the Knight v. Trump case, (3) despite this, user speech rights should be protected online. It also reviews proposed models of thinking that could address unresolved issues of the case.