Democratic Disruption in the Age of Social Media: Between Marketized and Structural Conceptions of Human Rights Law

Barrie Sander

40 citations0/0 files storedEuropean Journal of International Law

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Abstract

Abstract Once hailed as beacons of democracy, social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter now find themselves credited with its decay. Amidst a rising global techlash and growing calls for digital constitutionalism, this article develops a typology of the diverse forms of governance enabled by social media platforms and examines the contestability of human rights law in addressing the accountability deficits that characterize the platform economy. The article examines two interrelated forms of social media governance in particular: content moderation, encompassing the practices through which social media companies determine the permissibility and visibility of online content on their platforms; and data surveillance, encompassing the practices through which social media companies process personal data in accordance with their extractivist business models. Recognizing that human rights law is a vocabulary of governance with the potential to both restrain and legitimate particular relations of power within the platform economy, this article critically examines two rival conceptions of human rights law – marketized and structural – that may be relied upon to address the accountability shortfalls that pervade the contemporary social media ecosystem. The article ultimately argues in favour of a more structural conception of human rights law, one characterized by an openness to positive state intervention to safeguard public and collective values such as media pluralism and diversity as well as a systemic lens that strives to take into account imbalances of power in the social media ecosystem and the effects of state and platform practices on the social media environment as a whole.

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References

2018Deep Fakes: A Looming Challenge for Privacy, Democracy, and National Security 2018The European Union General Data Protection Regulation: What It Is And What It Means 2018Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics 2019Algorithms of oppression: how search engines reinforce racism 2019Anti-Social Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy 2011Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression 2018Online Political Microtargeting: Promises and Threats for Democracy 2020The Political Power of Platforms: How Current Attempts to Regulate Misinformation Amplify Opinion Power

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