regulation

This page considers questions about regulation and about personal identity management in 'equaintance' networks.

It covers -

• introduction - government and industry regulation of equaintance services
• key issues and concerns
• privacy and data ownership - commodification, datamining, licensing and jurisdiction questions
• crime - grooming, defamation, stalking and other offenses
• user responsibility, self-help and identity management

Institutional perceptions of threats in and by social network services are highlighted in the following page.

    introduction

'Social Networking Websites - A Concatenation of Impersonation, Denigration, Sexual Aggressive Solicitation, Cyber-Bullying or Happy
Slapping Videos' by Bruce Mann in International Journal of Law & Information Technology 2008 denounces SNS as the devil's playground, warning that -

Hands-off legislation, toothless policy statements, unknowing parents, uncaring participants, and unwilling social network intermediaries (SNIs), have conspired to invite impersonation, denigration, sexual or aggressive solicitation, cyber-bullying, and happy slapping to the members of most social networking websites (SNWs). The situation is serious - serious because the user-generated content (UGC) that is displayed on-screen is destroying users' lives; serious too, because of the volume of users at risk from posting their content, without intervention by the SNI.

There is no single global legal framework regarding the operation of online soft networks. That is consistent with distributed governance of the internet, reflecting both the nature of the global information infrastructure and the ongoing significance (or merely ambitions) of nation states.

No nation has enacted wide-ranging legislation to cover equaintance sites, although there are an increasing number of proposals - at national and provincial levels - for legislation that is specific to their use, particularly use by minors, and prohibition on access through public libraries and educational institutions. That legislation broadly transfers responsibility from parents to site operators, with an expectation for example that the operators will actively monitor all activity in a particular space and restrict 'bad language' or inappropriate interaction.

Regulation of equaintance services accordingly involves a mix of -

• traditional statute and case law regarding such matters as defamation, fraud, spam, harassment and contract
• online content regulation and legislation that seeks to seeks to extend, even significantly strengthen, offline regimes regarding 'grooming' of children, suicide and stalking
• action by site operators, whether on the basis of corporate citizenship, for maintenance of a brand or to minimise punitive litigation (particularly in US state courts).

There is no global standard for the operation of online soft networks. There is similarly no global requirement for licensing; national licensing requirements vary but in general are quite permissive.

As we have noted in discussing chat rooms and newsgroups, it is unsurprising that problems are evident in many equaintance services. Those problems - discussed in more detail below and in other pages elsewhere on this site - include defamation, identity theft, extortion, spam, privacy breaches and offensive expression. Media attention has focussed on egregious abuses (or just on eight figure damages claims in plaintiff-friendly courts). However it is clear that misbehaviour is not restricted to members of soft networks: some network operators are at fault through negligence or through intentional commoditisation of network members.

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