10 Reasons Why Social Media Does Not Need Regulation

1. Self-interested regulators interest groups and lobbyists

   You’ve got to wonder about anyone who wants to regulate anything. Yes, it is ostensibly about keeping people safe from dangerous business practices, but there are other side effects. As the list of criteria for ’safety’ or ‘truthfulness’ grows, it becomes harder to meet that criteria. At some point, only well funded operations can continue by having dedicated staff to jump over these hurdles. Smaller operations are left to either work 24 hours a day ,give up or get a job with one of those companies that can handle legal fees.

2. Vague criteria

   What is truth? There are some products available on the internet that are obviously of no use and there are others of very real value. Between these two extremes there is a wide array of services and goods that vary in quality and the accuracy with which they represent themselves. When you factor in things like paid reviews, comments planted in forums and twitter streams, you’ll see that there is an extremely wide variety of angles of approach to advertising. There are twice as many approaches to misleading advertising, and exponentially more when the campaign is not selling directly but only engaging in conversation. The amount of bureaucracy required to handle each kind of case would be massive

3. Rapidly changing criteria. In addition to vagueness in determining truth. Regulators would also have to contend with defining new criteria in order to deal with new technologies. Either that or the rules and regulations would have to approach a level of abstraction that would be difficult to implement. Beyond this, how many judges would be able to ascertain intent without the technical knowledge to understand how an effort was implemented and distributed?
4. Linked in charlatans driving the criteria into their own cul-de-sac fiefdoms

   Social media is already loaded with ‘Social Media Experts’ who are frantically trying to position themselves for what they see as a potential gold rush. If regulation takes hold these kind of people will be working non-stop to not only ensure that their definition of truth be legitimized, but that people who provide actual value (And thereby a threat), will be de-legitimatized. In a word regulation will be used as a wall to keep people out, not to protect.

5. People who can afford expensive lawyers will be more equal than you,

   The only people who will have much luck fighting against a judgment made by a regulator, will be someone with money to spend on this defense.

6. Bureaucratic nanny states make for weak minds

   Relying on a third party to do your thinking and screening for you is intellectually lazy and will only result in a trust-based atrophy. There are no guarantees that a specific body can protect you from liars. You will always be your own defense against this. As the saying goes ‘You can’t cheat and honest man’.

7. Let reputation, value and results decide

   If there is a product out there that works, people will buy it. Let the consumer define his or her wants and let businesses provide them. People are not to stupid to fend for themselves, they can apply logic and reasoning as effectively as any bureaucrat.

8. Regulation does not build trust, relationships do

   People will respond better to marketers that are informed, sincere and non-manipulative. When the strength of and confidence in a relationship increases, so does the likelihood of purchase. People who are in the business of deception will have a difficult time matching an honest businesses efforts when comparing relationship development.

9. It’s expensive and doesn’t work

   This would just be another big office that shows few results, Continually redefines it’s role and eventually only exists to employ it’s own staff. All at huge expense.

10. Let social media do the regulating

    Don’t we already have several case studies where people on the web, netizens, have effectively caused a backlash toward a company? Social media works well to regulate it’s own users. It does so for free and won’t create a toxic subculture of ‘policy experts’.

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