Social Media Intermediaries' Rules: A Cross-Country Comparison

Prakriti Patnaik, Department of Public Policy, KIIT Deemed to be University

ABSTRACT

Purpose - This paper aims to outline a comparative legal framework with regard to the liabilities of Social media intermediaries and the users’ for the contents that are posted online and the efforts made around by the countries India, Australia, Germany, China, the EU, and the USA to combat malpractices. Methodology/approach - This paper intends to compare the Rules/Acts by studying the legislative mechanism, Acts/Rules, numerous important reports, and comparisons with EU, Australian, German, Chinese, and American approaches that have been made with regard to the self-regulation issue.

Research questions - 1. What are the attributes of the Rules to compare? 2. Are the Regulations distinction from each other? 3. Which are the distinctive aspects of the Rules of these countries? 4. How different are Indian Rules compared to others? 5. Which Rules have the highest leverage to minimize objectionable material while upholding the ‘Rights of citizens’ and ‘Freedom of Speech and Expression’? Findings - These countries earlier did not have any one combined specific Rules/Acts for the supervision of the social media intermediaries (SMI). They were protected under the safeguard provisions of each country. But due to the increase in cyber crimes and the internet being a mode to express any illicit/ illegal/ terrorist/ sexual abuse contents, the countries drafted specific Rules/Acts to provide guidelines. It promotes a self-regulatory system, together with government supervision to ensure the enforcement of guidelines.

Keywords: Social Media Intermediaries, Safe harbor protection, Copyright law, Information society, Internet.