Where Is the Line? Charlottesville Forces Media and Tech Companies to Decide

[Commentary] It took the death of a young woman at the hands of one of the neo-Nazis she was protesting to force the ever-expanding media universe to face a question it has been evading for years: Where’s the line?

Unlike the last big communications revolutions — brought about with radio and then television — this one came with no barrier to entry in terms of expensive equipment like towers and studios. There have been no governmental limits like broadcasting standards and licensing requirements. But as the downsides of informational democratization become more evident — the opening it has provided for nefarious state actors, terrorists and hate mongers — those who have some control over the web’s content stream have had a hard time figuring out where to build some much-needed dams. The trouble has come in finding the line between what some may find offensive and what is objectively dangerous speech. But at this point, if we can’t set a line at neo-Nazis and white nationalists inciting hatred and violence, can we set any line at all?