Tech Companies Like Facebook and Twitter Are Drawing Lines. It’ll Be Messy. -- NYT

On a related note, see Sen. Ron Wyden on breaking up Facebook, net neutrality, and the law that built the internet (The Verge)

"This is a huge deal, and it’s well past time for the tech companies to take a firmer stand against lies and harassment. Still, as they wrestle with the question of responsibility and where to draw the line on certain kinds of content, we should all get ready for a very rough ride.

Here’s why: A mostly hands-off approach has been central to the tech platforms’ growth, allowing them to get to globe-spanning scale without bearing the social costs of their rise. But because they are now so influential — Facebook alone has more than two billion users — and so deeply embedded in our lives, a more hands-on approach to policing content will ripple around the world, altering politics, the media business and much else in society.

It could also have the opposite effect than what many critics want: better policing their own content could actually increase the power that tech platforms have to shape our lives."

Tech Companies Like Facebook and Twitter Are Drawing Lines. It’ll Be Messy. -- NYT