Defeating Disinformation
Digital Platform Responsibility, Regulation and Content Moderation on the Global Technological Commons

Explores how to balance freedom of speech and containment of dangerous online content to reduce societal risks of digital platforms.

Bhaskar Chakravorti (Edited by), Joel P. Trachtman (Edited by)

9781009438629, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 February 2025

282 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.57 kg

Global platforms present novel challenges. They are powerful conduits of commerce and global community, and their potential to influence behavior is enormous. Defeating Disinformation explores how to balance free speech and dangerous online content to reduce societal risks of digital platforms. The volume offers an interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon insights from different geographies and parallel challenges of managing global phenomena with national policies and regulations. Chapters also examine the responsibility of platforms for their content, which is limited by national laws such as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in the US. This balance between national rules and the need for appropriate content moderation threatens to splinter platforms and reduce their utility across the globe. Timely and expansive, Defeating Disinformation develops a global approach to address these tensions while maintaining, and even enhancing, the social contribution of platforms. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

1. Introduction: comparative, generative, and synthetic analysis of international dimensions of platform responsibility Bhaskar Chakravorti and Joel P. Trachtman
2. The United States' approach to 'platform regulation Eric Goldman
3. Platform responsibility in the European Union: from the E-commerce directive to the digital services act Christoph Busch
4. Platform responsibility with Chinese characteristics Jufang Wang
5. Safe harbor and content moderation in India Jhalak Mrignayani Kakkar, Shashank Mohan and Vasudev Devadasan
6. The last breaths of Brazil's marco civil? Artur Pericles L. Monteiro
7. International dimensions of infectious disease control: applications to platform responsibility Mark Jit and Dominik K. Hofstetter
8. Platform responsibility reforms: lessons from International financial regulation Federico Lupo-Pasini
9. The International tax regulatory approach as a model for platform content moderation Carlo Garbarino
10. Drawing lessons from efforts at moderating extremism Farah Pandith and Simone Lipkind
11. Policy approaches to defining and enforcing responsibilities for online platforms Josephine Wolff
12. Why Global platform governance is a sham Daniel W. Drezner
13. The disinformation Paradox: why regulating online content at home may make matters worse in the World Bhaskar Chakravorti
14. Platform responsibility: an International legal synthesis Joel P. Trachtman
15. Conclusion: the future of defeating disinformation Bhaskar Chakravorti and Joel P. Trachtman
Index.

Subject Areas: IT & Communications law [LNQ]