Policy and regulatory frameworks addressing platform-mediated misinformation, computational propaganda, and information integrity. Approaches include ad transparency, antitrust action, content moderation standards, bot disclosure, privacy regulation, and structural reforms to platform business models.
Key policy directions
Ad transparency and disclosure:
Requirements for platforms to disclose who is purchasing political ads, targeting criteria, spending amounts, and reach. Aims to make coordinated disinformation campaigns visible to researchers and regulators. Challenges include shell companies, LLCs used for campaign laundering, and the detection-evasion arms race.
Bot and inauthentic-behavior labeling:
Disclosure requirements for automated accounts and coordinated behavior. Platforms implement detection systems to identify and remove (or label) bots. Challenge: absence of a label can become a trust signal that bad actors learn to exploit.
Antitrust and platform consolidation:
Structural approaches to break up dominant platforms or create interoperability requirements. Rationale: reducing single points of failure where one platform determines information diets for billions; enabling competition and user choice.
Privacy regulation:
Limiting detailed user data collection and behavioral profiling, reducing the precision and effectiveness of microtargeting. Examples: GDPR in Europe, proposed frameworks in the U.S.
Content moderation standards:
Government and platform-defined rules for what content is removed, labeled, or demonetized. Tensions between free speech, platform liability, and platform responsibility for hosted content.
Key talks and papers
Talks:
- DiResta (2018) — The Internet's Original Sin — Frames platform regulation as response to structural business-model incentives; discusses four policy directions (ad transparency, bot labeling, antitrust, privacy regulation); notes the challenge of balancing utility (legitimate NGO advocacy) against abuse; discusses role of industry standards similar to environmental regulations
