Regulating the online sphere

How to best regulate the online sphere will be amongst the most important topics of the upcoming decade. Up until recently, laws have been in place that serve to mostly shield digital intermediaries from liability for third-party illegal content on their platform. Since 2016 however, in response to mounting concerns over the criminal misuse of the internet and a surge in noxious content online, the regulatory landscape has begun to change. Governments around the world have started to impose laws and regulatory frameworks that oblige online platforms to expediently and proactively address illegal or harmful content on their sites. Increasingly, however, platforms have also developed their own modes of self-regulation, endeavouring to incorporate new structures of responsibility and accountability into their business models. Join Flora Deverell and Jacob Berntson as they discuss the ways in which online regulation is being pursued by companies, governments, and multi-lateral organisations, such as with the upcoming EU wide law on the dissemination of terrorist content. They are joined by two of the foremost voices in this space: Evelyn Douek, a lecturer in law and SJD candidate at Harvard Law School, and affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, studying international and transnational regulation of online speech; and Daphne Keller, Director of Platform Regulation at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center – formerly Assistant General Counsel at Google and Director of Intermediary Liability at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society – who has worked on groundbreaking Intermediary Liability litigation and legislation around the world. They also explore the implications of Facebook’s new Oversight Board and what this really means for governance and accountability processes, whether we should use international human rights law as a framework for ruling the internet, and why terrorist content is such an important topic in regulatory discourse.Full list of resources on our website: https://www.techagainstterrorism.fm/regulating-the-online-sphere/