Rethinking Rights in Social Media Governance

Rachel Griffin (1)

1 EdD - École de Droit de Sciences Po (Sciences Po)

Historically, EU internet regulation has focused on economic goals like copyright infringement and market integration. This is starting to change, however. In the context of the broader 'techlash' against the power and exploitative practices of major platforms, EU lawmakers are increasingly emphasising 'European values' and fundamental rights protection. Recent EU platform regulations rely heavily on fundamental rights to protect individual interests against state and corporate overreach. In the Digital Services Act, the EU's major upcoming reform to platform regulation, fundamental rights are even more strongly emphasised. In turn, most of the critical scholarship on these regulations judges them according to their compliance with fundamental rights, highlighting ways that they might offer inadequate protection.

Keywords: DSA; Platform Regulation; fundamental rights

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Law

Rachel Griffin. Rethinking Rights in Social Media Governance: Why fundamental rights are not enough to remedy the injustices of contemporary social media. 2022. ⟨hal-03940983⟩