U.S. Initiatives to Counter Harmful Speech and Disinformation on Social Media

There are limited, if any, legislative efforts in the United States that directly target hate speech. Attempts to combat hate speech through legislation are restricted by its broad definition, the First Amendment, and likely applications against minority groups. Despite the lack of criminal legislation around hate speech specifically, there are a range of other legal tools available to target similar inflammatory and dangerous speech online. Many of these laws are problematic in that they criminalize behavior with often disproportionate penalties, yet do not take a preventative or structural approach to issues of inflammatory and hateful speech.