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VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

The exponential growth in the Internet as a means of communication has been emulated by an increase in far-right and extremist web sites and hate based activity in cyberspace. The anonymity and mobility afforded by the Internet has made harassment and expressions of hate effortless in a landscape that is abstract and beyond the realms of traditional law enforcement. This paper examines the complexities of regulating hate speech on the Internet through legal and technological frameworks. It explores the limitations of unilateral national content legislation and the difficulties inherent in multilateral efforts to regulate the Internet. The paper develops to consider how technological innovations can restrict the harm caused by hate speech while states seek to find common ground upon which to harmonise their approach to regulation. Further, it argues that a broad coalition of government, business and citizenry is likely to be most effective in reducing the harm caused by hate speech.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

There are increasing calls to curtail or revoke Section 230, a 1996 law that protects internet companies from most lawsuits related to user-generated content. Critics of Section 230 say it discourages vigilant self-regulation. Proponents counter that the law has fostered free expression and innovation. Our report concludes that Section 230 ought to be preserved but significantly amended.

Social-media companies make extensive use of artificial intelligence in their efforts to remove and block terrorist content from their platforms. This paper begins by arguing that, since such efforts amount to an attempt to channel human conduct, they should be regarded as a form of regulation that is subject to rule-of-law principles. The paper then discusses three sets of rule-of-law issues. The first set concerns enforceability. Here, the paper highlights the displacement effects that have resulted from the automated removal and blocking of terrorist content and argues that regard must be had to the whole social-media ecology, as well as to jihadist groups other than the so-called Islamic State and other forms of violent extremism. Since rule by law is only a necessary, and not a sufficient, condition for compliance with rule-of-law values, the paper then goes on to examine two further sets of issues: the clarity with which social-media companies define terrorist content and the adequacy of the processes by which a user may appeal against an account suspension or the blocking or removal of content. The paper concludes by identifying a range of research questions that emerge from the discussion and that together form a promising and timely research agenda to which legal scholarship has much to contribute.