Beyond the usual suspects: a taxonomy of social media regulations in countries with human rights issues

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article is a taxonomy of laws used by ‘unfree’ and ‘partly free’ countries to regulate social media platforms and their users. While there are many older laws that can have an effect on social media usage (such as laws on defamation, sedition, and terrorism as well as laws regulating the journalism industry) and some older pieces of legislation will be discussed, the focus of this article will be on regulations that specifically reference social media or the internet. It will explore two categories of regulations, each of which are subdivided into two types of legislation. The first category concerns laws that are targeted at social media users and is divided into laws that regulate the conduct of users and laws designed to dissuade people from using social media. The second category examines laws that are targeted at social media platforms (as opposed to their users) and first considers substantive regulations before moving on to look at procedural regulations. This article attempts to capture the complex interactions between public and private actors. This article also tries to shed light on the morass of local laws that platforms must navigate in order to maintain access to an ever-growing number of jurisdictions.