Governing Social Media as a Public Utility | Christoph Mueller-Bloch, Raffaele Ciriello | ResearchPod

Transcript: Governing Social Media as a Public Utility

Alex: Welcome to another episode of ResearchPod.

Alex: Sam, I've been thinking about how these platforms seem built to keep us scrolling, even when it spreads false information that divides people. What if we treated them more like electricity or water—something essential but regulated for the public good?

Sam: That's a sharp way to frame it, Alex. This draws from a paper by Christoph Mueller-Bloch and Raffaele Ciriello, accepted for Communications of the ACM, titled "Governing Social Media as a Public Utility." The central idea is to shift social media from profit-driven companies to essential public infrastructure, overseen democratically to reduce harms like misinformation without limiting free speech.

Alex: So this paper is basically asking: who should control what we see on social media—corporations chasing ad money, or some kind of public system?

Sam: Exactly. The core problem is that today's platforms amplify false or misleading info because it grabs attention, and attention means profits. Yet that same info links to divided communities, even violence in some cases, and poorer mental health overall. Current rules, like the U.S. Section 230 that shields companies from lawsuits over user posts, or the EU's Digital Services Act that sets some moderation duties, still leave decisions to the corporations. That creates a built-in clash: they need engagement to make money, but engagement often comes from stuff that stirs people up.

Alex: Right, so it's not just about bad posts—it's the system rewarding them. Walk me through why that feels like a deeper issue.

Sam: Imagine a factory that pollutes a river to cut costs; the owner profits, but the town suffers from dirty water. That's a negative externality—when one group's gain causes costs for everyone else, like how viral false claims split friends or families along political lines. Platforms know this happens but keep pushing sensational content because users stick around longer, boosting ad sales.

Alex: Okay, so the harm isn't accidental—it's baked into how they make money. But aren't there already ways to fight back, like fact-checkers or user reports?

Sam: Fact-checkers help, but they take more work to debunk lies than it does to spread them. Platforms like Meta have tried oversight boards or crowd votes, but those stay under company control, so the profit pull wins out. The paper points to examples where companies ignored harms even after knowing about them, prioritizing revenue.

Alex: That makes the status quo sound shaky. So what's the paper's main fix for this?

Sam: They propose running social media like a public utility—think of electricity grids or water systems, run with rules to serve everyone reliably, not just maximize sales. For social media, which now acts as our main news source and public forum for billions, that means democratic control: courts handle removing truly illegal stuff like threats or fraud, while everyday users vote up or down on borderline misleading posts to push them lower in feeds.

Governing Social Media as a Public Utility

Christoph Mueller-Bloch, Raffaele Ciriello

Feb 13, 2026·6:09·arxiv·Original Paper

Public Utility ModelContent ModerationDemocratic OversightMisinformation HarmsFree Expression Safeguards

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6 min

Briefing

The Case for Public Utility Governance

Modern social media platforms are central to public discourse, yet their business models—which prioritize user engagement to maximize advertising revenue—frequently amplify misinformation, polarization, and mental health issues. Current regulatory frameworks, such as the U.S. Section 230 and the EU Digital Services Act, largely delegate content moderation to the corporations themselves. This creates a structural conflict of interest: because misinformation is highly engaging, platforms have a financial incentive to promote it, even when they are aware of the resulting societal harm.

A New Model for Digital Infrastructure

The authors argue that social media should be treated as a sovereign public utility, similar to water, electricity, or public broadcasting. This model shifts the focus from corporate profit to the public good by implementing three core pillars:

Democratic Oversight: Governance would be managed by independent, non-partisan institutions—modeled after public broadcasters like the BBC or Germany’s public media—to insulate editorial and funding decisions from political interference.
Legally Bounded Content Removal: Content removal would be strictly limited to illegal material (e.g., fraud, incitement, or defamation) and enforced by courts, rather than by corporate policy.
Transparent Algorithmic Ranking: Instead of removing "harmful but lawful" content, the model proposes using transparent, open-source ranking systems that prioritize social connections and user interests over engagement, thereby reducing the visibility of misinformation without resorting to censorship.

Why It Matters

This framework challenges the assumption that private corporations are the only viable entities capable of managing digital spaces. By separating content removal from content ranking, the model seeks to protect free expression while curbing the negative externalities of algorithmic amplification. The authors suggest that public platforms could coexist with private ones, providing a democratic alternative that forces the entire ecosystem to be more accountable to citizens rather than shareholders.

Key Terms and Definitions

Public Utility Model — A governance framework that treats digital platforms as essential public infrastructure, subjecting them to democratic oversight and public-interest mandates rather than purely commercial incentives.
Negative Externality — The societal costs (such as polarization or mental health decline) generated by private corporate actions that are not reflected in the platform's profit-driven business model.
Bullshit Asymmetry Principle — The observation that the effort required to refute misinformation is significantly greater than the effort required to produce it, creating a persistent disadvantage for factual discourse.
Algorithmic Ranking — The process by which platforms determine the visibility of content, which the authors argue should be shifted from engagement-based metrics to standards that prioritize accuracy and civil discourse.
Information Fiduciaries — A proposed regulatory approach that would impose legal duties of care on platforms, which the authors criticize for failing to resolve the fundamental conflict between profit-seeking and societal well-being.

Abstract

Social media platforms connect billions, but their business models often amplify societal harm through misinformation, which is linked to polarization, violence, and declining mental health. Current governance frameworks, such as the U.S. Section 230 and the EU Digital Services Act, delegate content moderation to corporations. This creates structural conflicts of interest because misinformation drives engagement, and engagement drives profit. We propose a public utility model for social media governance that prioritizes the public good over commercial incentives. Integrating legislated content removal with democratic content moderation, the model protects free expression while mitigating societal harms. It frames social media as sovereign digital infrastructure governed through democratic oversight, transparent algorithms, and institutional safeguards.

Governing Social Media as a Public Utility: Research Paper Podcast