As the founder, chair, and CEO of the Exceptional Women Alliance, I am fortunate to be surrounded by extraordinary female business leaders. Our purpose is to empower each other through peer mentorship that provides personal and professional fulfillment within this unique sisterhood.
Joanna Massey, PhD, is one of those business leaders, and she is not afraid to challenge the status quo. She is a corporate board director, Fortune 500 executive, and expert in corporate governance and crisis communications. With advanced degrees in business, law, and psychology, she brings a unique, interdisciplinary perspective to one of the most pressing issues of our time: how to protect free speech in the digital age without sacrificing public safety and democracy.
Q: You wrote a policy paper for Cornell Law School on regulating free speech. What do people get wrong about the First Amendment?
Massey: In the United States, you can say what you want, but you are still responsible for the damage your words do.
That’s the part people forget. The First Amendment protects your right to speak freely without the government punishing you. It doesn’t protect you from the consequences of what you say—or from being banned by private-sector businesses, like Facebook, Twitter/X, and TikTok. They set their own rules, and if you break them, you deal with the penalties.
Q: You say in your work that Americans misunderstand what liberty means. Can you explain?
Massey: Liberty was never meant to be limitless. Our founding fathers—Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, among others—believed that freedom had to be balanced with responsibility. The Constitution wasn’t written to give one person the right to dominate another. It protects us from the government, but it also protects us from each other. So, when you spew hate online because you don’t like how I look, who I love, or what I believe, that isn’t exercising your rights. It’s infringing on mine.
Q: So how do we define the line between free expression and harmful speech today?
Massey: Right now, our speech laws focus on intent. The courts want to know, “Did you mean to incite violence?”
Who is going to say yes to that?
It’s also an outdated standard because the issue today is not the intent behind attacking an individual or group of people—it is the cumulative impact of the speech. One cigarette doesn’t cause cancer, but cumulatively, secondhand smoke does—which is why we regulate it. Your freedom to smoke stops when it endangers me.
Now, apply that to hatred. One racial slur doesn’t cause a riot, but unchecked and repeated hate does. Based on our Constitutional rights, your freedom to spew hate stops when it takes away my ability to live safely and freely.
A good example is the false rumors that spread in 2024 about Haitian immigrants in a small Ohio town. Even after officials and business leaders debunked the lies, threats escalated until schools closed, offices shut down, and the entire community was destabilized.
Speech today doesn’t live in isolation—extremism unfolds through a steady stream of posts, shares, and content that doesn’t break current laws but collectively causes harm.
Q: Why is social media dividing people?
Massey: Human beings are biologically hardwired for survival, and our brains don’t know the difference between a tiger and a tweet. When someone criticizes our beliefs or lifestyle, our brain reacts as if we are under physical attack—by banding together, retreating into tribes, and protecting our side as if our lives depend on it.
Platforms give us endless ways to find “our people” and feel safe inside bubbles that affirm our beliefs. Those algorithms are also programmed to shut out dissenting views and lifestyles, so we don’t experience other perspectives in a neutral way.
Q: You’ve coined the term “mass incitement.” What does that mean?
Massey: Mass incitement happens when platforms or public figures repeatedly amplify false or inflammatory content until millions are echoing it, creating a collective force that makes violence or discrimination more likely.
Q: Some say users just need to be more skeptical about the media they consume. But is the fix that simple?
Massey: That is a convenient argument, but it misses the point. The real problem is impact. You cannot exercise your rights by infringing on mine—that runs counter to the promises of the Constitution.
Up until now, we have been blaming our division on politics, but the problem isn’t red (Republican) or blue (Democrat). It’s green (money).
Social media companies make money every time we click, and people stay engaged longer when they’re upset. That’s why the algorithms promote outrage, not accuracy. These platforms aren’t neutral. They’re profiting from our disagreements.
We regulate television, radio, and phone lines to protect the public interest—but somehow, we’ve left algorithms completely unchecked. That legal void is fueling chaos.
Q: What reforms would actually make a difference?
Massey: The answer is modernizing our laws to reflect the reality of mass incitement. That means updating FCC authority, reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and holding social platforms accountable the same way we do other producers of products that cause cumulative, foreseeable harm.
Q: Free speech absolutists say any regulation is a threat to democracy. How do you respond to that?
Massey The real threat to democracy is weaponized speech. Misinformation fuels division and violence, hate speech becomes normalized, and society starts to break down.
So, calling hate speech free speech is like calling an assault “self-expression.”
The Constitution protects us from harm, including the harms suffered by victims of hate speech. We have to reconcile that with how much protection hate speech is given today.
The answer is to create guardrails that keep speech free and fair. We banned cigarette ads on TV. We rated movies. We censored shock jocks. And the First Amendment survived all of it. It will survive hate speech regulation, as well.
Larraine Segil is founder, chair, and CEO of The Exceptional Women Alliance.