Program on Platform Regulation

In a new blog post, Daphne Keller, Director of the Program on Platform Regulation at the Cyber Policy Center, looks at the need for transparency when it comes to content moderation and asks, what kind of transparency do we really want?

On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, the Lawfare Podcast’s miniseries on our online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic speaks with Daphne Keller, the director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center and an expert on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Alex Feerst, one of the great thinkers about Internet content moderation, has a revealing metaphor about the real-world work involved. “You might go into it thinking that online information flows are best managed by someone with the equivalent of a PhD in hydrology,” he says. “But you quickly discover that what you really need are plumbers.”

The Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) 2019 ruling in Glawischnig-Piesczek v Facebook Ireland** addresses courts’ powers to issue injunctions requiring internet hosting platforms to proactively monitor content posted by their users.

The “Good Samaritan” principle ensures that online intermediaries are not penalized for good faith measures against illegal or other forms of inappropriate content. This is a rule that applies to concrete types of intermediaries, particularly those providing hosting services.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s political fortunes may be waning in Britain, but her push to make internet companies police their users’ speech is alive and well. In the aftermath of the recent London attacks, Ms. May called platforms like Google and Facebook breeding grounds for terrorism.