Social Media Regulation Futures: Learning from International Policy Mixes

Abstract

There has been a turn worldwide towards social media regulation in the context of concerns about online harms, including those arising from misinformation. Social media regulation largely involves nation-states – or in the case of the European Union, a supra-national regional entity – setting rules and imposing sanctions on global digital platforms, raising issues about consistency in the application of such laws across jurisdictions and competing normative principles that underpin the understanding of social media and its relationship to politics and society. The paper considers the proposal by the Australian Federal government to develop a Combating Misinformation and Disinformation Bill as a case study, noting the relationship such legislation has to the circulation of online misinformation and racist social media content during the Voice referendum of 2023. The paper notes the importance of access to information about international approaches for comparative policy development and developing systemic approaches to such regulation that are not simply reactive, and points to resources being developed to enable such comparative work, such as the International Digital Policy Observatory (“IDPO”).