In the latest episode of Get Real with David DesRosiers, Dan McCarthy, editor of Modern Age of Conservative Review, examines the growing debate over social media regulation in both the United Kingdom and the United States. As lawmakers consider new measures designed to protect children online, McCarthy explores a central question: How can policymakers improve online safety without undermining the privacy, anonymity, and free speech rights of adults? Addressing the challenges of balancing legitimate public concerns with the preservation of fundamental civil liberties in the digital age.

DAN MCCARTHY: Well, there are some cutting-edge issues that both Britain and the United States are facing right now where free speech is concerned. So, even as the ARC conference was taking place, Britain was in the midst of still debating the consequences of a bill which is going to regulate social media, require identity verification, which is intended to protect children and stop minors from being exposed to corrupting material online. But there are serious concerns here that it’s also going to mean the end of online anonymity for adults and that this is going to be a transgression against privacy and it’s going to have a chilling effect on free speech. In America, the same concerns are being expressed in Congress as well. How do you balance the need to protect children with the freedom of adults to communicate anonymously as indeed many of our founding fathers did? You can think about Publius, our own Federalist Papers written pseudonymously. There is a long tradition here of free speech being combined with the ability to abstract from your own sort of concrete identity and take on a pseudonym or anonymity and that right now is under assault.

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