IGF 2022 Town Hall #73 Platform regulation in the West versus the Rest

Platform regulation in the West versus the Rest: How to prevent Internet policy from replicating existing power structures

Platform governance is experiencing a watershed moment. From imminent antitrust action in the US to the Digital Services Act in Europe, Western powers have sought to provide checks and balances to the global content platforms which now dominate billions of people’s lives. Conspicuously missing from these conversations are nations that both house the majority of platform users, and the worst of these platform’s impacts.

The current myopic approach contains many underlying tensions and hypocrisies. From online safety laws being passed in the West that would otherwise be deemed egregious attacks on freedom of expression, to the legitimacy of American companies (usually) being the defenders of free speech in non-American contexts - there is a clear need for a new framework that embeds multi-stakeholder consensus and deliberation.

Calls for greater investment in local language and cultural capacity in content moderation activities are promising, but are ultimately insufficient in actually shifting real governance power to those that are most affected. In this session, an expert panel unpacks radical ideas that will rebalance how the platform governance debate can truly ensure equity.

We intend to keep the conversation as blended as possible by asking questions from both the online and in person audience, and by directing specific questions towards the online participants, to ensure they lead the conversation as much as the in person participants.