Social Media Regulation
How governments around the world are grappling with the power of social media platforms, from content moderation and data privacy to competition and democratic accountability.
Platform Power
Social media platforms have become among the most powerful institutions in the world. Facebook (Meta), YouTube, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and others shape public discourse for billions of people. Their algorithms determine what information users see, their content moderation policies decide what speech is permitted, and their data collection practices accumulate vast repositories of personal information. This concentration of power in private, largely unaccountable corporations has prompted a global regulatory response.
The debate is not whether to regulate, but how. The United States has historically relied on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from liability for user-generated content. Europe has taken a more interventionist approach with the Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes transparency requirements, mandates content moderation standards, and gives regulators authority to audit algorithmic systems. Authoritarian states like China and Russia simply build walled internet ecosystems that they control directly.