Social media sites are where our meetings, news, and protests occur. These meetings are referred to as “public squares” by corporations like Meta and X. Yet decisions made in corporate boardrooms, not town halls, increasingly decide what we see and how we are heard.
In January 2025, Meta's independent fact-checking program ended, and a new policy requiring users to create “notes” for inaccurate content was implemented. During the same period, many Facebook and Instagram users were automatically redirected to follow new government-operated pages for President Trump and Vice President Pence (Kleinman, 2025). As Meta explained, the new policy was standard procedure, but some Facebook users claimed they couldn't unfollow (Felton, 2025).
The U.S. Supreme Court has recently seen petitions challenging the constitutionality of laws governing platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, which are required to host much political discourse. The regulations require platforms to operate in accordance with the principles of public utilities. An interesting aspect is that several justices noted that such platforms were already able to decide what to show and what not to (Dwyer, 2024). Cases on free speech illustrate what happens when government officials start blocking people on government pages, and the government has to issue an apology. In Colorado, a resident won a case after being blocked for posting complaints against the police, and the Air Force also had to desist from blocking people after a retired major posted derogatory comments against a holiday post (Knapick, 2022).
In most instances, our social communications occur on privately owned networks, and experts indicate that decisions made by a few companies influence most people. Deregulation may seem appealing, but it is not very effective when a few large companies exhibit qualities that border on monopoly. Engagement‑maximising algorithms also increase the likelihood of posting misinformation and ideologies (Monahan, 2025).
Decentralised alternatives such as Mastodon allow people to share posts and follow others across servers and enable site administrators to set rules. These are smaller-scale and less polished, but there is no single corporation running the entire thing. Others are pushing for greater control from authorities. The Federal Communications Commission has begun defining what it believes Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act actually is, and some officials want to limit the legal shield that protects platforms from liability (Monahan, 2025). The courts have already determined that government officials are obligated to uphold freedom of speech on social media platforms (Knapick, 2022).
What has happened so far in 2025 highlights how vulnerable the concept of the "public square" is. Free‑speech cases show that constitutional protections follow public officials onto these platforms. To create a healthier online space, we need a mix of decentralised tools and sensible regulation. Relying on tech CEOs' goodwill is not enough. Diversifying where we talk and insisting on fair rules can bring us closer to a digital public square that serves everyone.
References
Dwyer, D. (2024, February 26). Supreme Court hears major cases on free speech, laws regulating social media. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-hears-major-cases-free-speech-laws/story?id=107545872
Felton, K. (2025, January 23). Meta denies forcing users to follow new official Trump, Vance accounts. Straight Arrow News. https://san.com/cc/meta-denies-forcing-users-to-follow-new-official-trump-vance-accounts/#:~:text=With%20a%20new%20administration%20taking,new%20president%20and%20vice%20president
Kleinman, Z. (2025, January 7). Meta to replace “biased” fact-checkers with moderation by users. Bbc.com; BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly74mpy8klo
Knapick, R. (2022). Air Force changes social media speech policy to resolve lawsuit with veteran - The Free Speech Project. The Free Speech Project. https://freespeechproject.georgetown.edu/tracker-entries/air-force-changes-social-media-speech-policy-to-resolve-lawsuit-with-veteran/#:~:text=An%20Air%20Force%20veteran%20sued,Air%20Force%20social%20media%20policy
Monahan, J. (2025). Deregulating the Digital Town Square: Who Controls the Conversation? Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. https://www.heinz.cmu.edu/media/2025/March/deregulating-the-digital-town-square-who-controls-the-conversation#:~:text=Artificial%20intelligence%20,brave%20new%20world%20of%20AI