Evelyn Aswad (University of Oklahoma College of Law) and Paolo Carozza (Notre Dame Law School) have posted Using Global Free Expression Standards to Govern Platform Content Moderation (Washington University Global Studies Law Review, forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Moody v. NetChoice, holding that social media companies’ core content moderation decisions constitute protected First Amendment expression, has triggered questions about the future of user free speech rights online. If most speech occurs on privately owned digital platforms and corporate expressive rights are the focus of First Amendment protection, many have questioned how individual’s speech interests can be protected in the digital realm.
In a world of rapidly evolving technology in which regulation and ethical frameworks are often missing, it is unsurprising that there are gaps in the protection of individual rights. We believe it is timely to assess the work of the largest, worldwide human rights oversight experiment for platform content moderation and its implications for free expression in the digital age.
This article provides the first comprehensive review and analysis of over five years of work of Meta’s Oversight Board in applying global standards of free expression and corporate human rights responsibility to content moderation decisions on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. We assess the extent to which application of these standards have—or have not—been helpful in protecting users’ expressive rights in platform content moderation. Ultimately, we conclude that human rights standards do provide a helpful normative framework—in contrast to the skepticism of some scholarly critics of this approach—but we identify specific areas where additional work needs to be done in translating these norms to private sector content moderation.
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