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What can be done about hate speech in an era when it can go global in an instant through the wonder of advanced media technology? And what about the role of the government — should it step in to regulate new information technology?

In 2022, we wonder what can be done about Twitter; 90 years ago, we were worried about the airwaves.

In our Dec. 2, 1932 editorial “Stopping Social Mischief,” we discussed whether freedom of speech protected antisemitic speech, and one particular case in which the government had intervened:

“The Rev. Robert P. Shuler of Los Angeles has been told in no uncertain terms that one may not speak as he pleases, anymore than one may act as he pleases. The Federal Commission, in unbroken decisions, dignified by judicial deliberation, and deepened by historic precedent, has said that the freedom of speech is not the freedom of abuse under the Constitution. The individual is subordinate to society.”

Robert “Fighting Bob” Shuler was a popular Evangelical Christian preacher in Los Angeles, where he had a large following for his fiery radio sermons. Shuler was pro-KKK and anti-Catholic, anti-Black and definitely anti-Jewish.

He had his radio license revoked in 1931, and case documents give such reasons as “the broadcasts by Dr. Shuler were sensational rather than instructive; and that in two instances Shuler had been convicted of attempting in his radio talks to obstruct the orderly administration of public justice.”

Shuler appealed. The court responded that the freedom to express thoughts in the U.S. was sacred, “But this does not mean that the government, through agencies established by Congress, may not refuse a renewal of license to one who has abused it to broadcast defamatory and untrue matter.”

The radio is no instrument with which to tamper. Reaching from one corner of the nation to another, it can do great good or frightful mischief.

In Shuler’s case the government could make a move because the airwaves were, and are, regulated at the federal level. But social media companies have argued they are private businesses that can only self-regulate (and largely have been successful with this argument in court).

It all hinges on the definition of “common carrier.” Examples of common carriers are companies that operate taxi fleets or railroads, but also landline and cellular telephone companies. The government can regulate them more tightly. Newspapers, on the other hand, are not common carriers and control what kind of speech they publish.

Courts have been divided on the question of common carrier status and government regulation of social media, but in May of this year, a U.S. Supreme Court decision indicated that federal or state control of speech on social media looks unlikely.

That leaves self-regulation, which groups like the Anti-Defamation League are advocating for, with reliance on sophisticated algorithms to identify and track hate speech and strongly worded pleas for civil discourse. But currently that seems a distant hope at Twitter, where new owner Elon Musk has hollowed out the company’s content moderation team. The question of how to stand against hate speech remains.

In 1932 we cheered the decision of the court against Shuler:

“The United States tribunals, governed by common sense and not influenced by legal chicanery, pointed to the great social mischief that would follow if a speaker over the radio could not be prevented from perpetrating patent abuses.”

We also wrote: “The radio is no instrument with which to tamper. Reaching from one corner of the nation to another, it can do great good or frightful mischief.”

Despite a different legal status, the same could be said about the internet.