UNM Professor: Stop Treating Social Media Algorithms as Immune to the Law
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Prof. Harris Arthur Hedar, a professor at Universitas Negeri Makassar (UNM), has called on academics and legal practitioners to stop treating social media algorithms as entities immune to the law under the pretext of technological neutrality.
This call comes amid concerns over a fundamental shift in how humans consume information.
“If in the past information curation was handled by editors, sub-editors, or other professional mechanisms, today that curation has been entirely handed over to algorithms,” said Prof. Harris in a statement in Jakarta on Saturday.
He emphasised that technology is never neutral, but carries missions, designs, and consequences. Accordingly, he urged academics and legal practitioners to boldly move beyond classical legal dogmatism regarding algorithms.
Harris outlined several challenges faced due to algorithms operating in a space of legal impunity. These challenges range from legal causality and the status of legal subjects to jurisdiction.
On legal causality, he said, proving that an algorithm directly caused violence or suicide is indeed difficult.
Meanwhile, for the second challenge, he continued, algorithms lack status as legal subjects because they are neither legal entities nor human beings.
The third challenge, jurisdiction, arises because companies developing algorithms are generally located in foreign jurisdictions.
He did not deny that currently, algorithms appear to exist in a space of legal impunity. Legal protections provided by Section 230 in the United States or the principle of intermediary liability in several countries often serve as shields for digital platforms.
“They argue that they are merely ‘conduits’ (carriers), not publishers of content,” he said.
Harris also expressed several steps that can be taken to address algorithms. This, he said, includes expanding the interpretation of gross negligence in civil law.
He stated that if a platform knows (or should know) that its algorithm design has the potential to create extreme polarisation or incite violence, yet still prioritises engagement or interaction for profit, then that platform has committed negligence causing mass harm.
He stressed the importance of reconceptualising algorithms as products in the realm of product liability.
Although algorithms are not physically tangible, he continued, algorithms are commodities that are distributed and sold in the form of user attention or the attention economy, and they have deadly design defects.
“Class action lawsuits can be directed at the corporations behind the algorithms using the design defect theory, just like lawsuits against dangerous products,” said Harris emphatically.
In this way, he believes that suing algorithms is not an effort to hinder innovation or merely blame technology.
He assured that such steps are efforts to return the law to its most essential function, namely providing justice for victims and creating social justice.
He emphasised that it is time for the law to act as the commander in cyberspace to ensure that technological innovation aligns with human dignity and values of justice.