Campaigners have long been calling for a change in the law to force social media companies to take racist, sexist, terrorist, or obscene material posted on their platforms more seriously. They want the government to bind Facebook, Google, etc. to the same strict rules that apply to newspapers and magazines. But that would be wrong. The proprietors of newspapers and magazines are classified as 'publishers', and all publishers are responsible for the content that is printed or displayed on their pages, whoever has contributed it. But the operators of social media platforms are not publishers in the proper sense of the word, and therefore they are not accountable for what individuals post on their platforms.