Taming the Social Media Giants: How far should the state go in regulating online content?

The law, history teaches us, lags inevitably behind technological change. In respect of no development is this more true than the ‘Information Revolution,’ those sweeping and manifold transformations brought about by popular and near-instantaneous access to the internet. Proving a particular challenge to regulators is social media. Compare, by way of illustration, the regulatory scheme governing more traditional media with that applicable to the media of this new digital age. Whereas television content is beholden to a comprehensive set of guidelines and overseen by a government-approved regulator, content published via social media exists in what may more accurately be described as a regulatory ‘wild west’. It is my argument that more stringent legal safeguards need to be built into the online sphere, and that this is a challenge that the state cannot shy away from. In my view, the most insidious by-products of this technological revolution is the emergence of ‘fake