Social Media Regulation: A Lesson From 1930s Germany

(The Atlantic) Our way of taking power and using it would have been inconceivable without the radio and the airplane" Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels claimed in August 1933. Such statements are often citedthe head of Disney Bob Iger recently said that Adolf Hitler would have loved social mediabut frequently misinterpreted. Goebbels was not saying that the Nazis had used both new technologies the airplane and the radio to come to power. Rather the airplane helped the Nazis take power. Radio helped them keep it. The history of radio and in particular how it was regulated in interwar Germany is more relevant than ever: Five years ago the question was whether we would regulate social media. Now the questions are how and when we will regulate them. As politicians and regulators in places as disparate as Berlin Singapore and Washingtoneven Facebook founder Mark Zuckerbergconsider how best to do so we should think carefully about the fallout from well-intentioned new rules and avoid the mistakes of the past.