In this article for Tech Policy Press and Just Security, Fordham Law Professor Olivier Sylvain breaks down various United States laws aimed at regulating social media. These state statutes, he says, can be lumped into three categories: content moderation, data protection, and child online safety laws.
Louis Brandeis famously observed that, in the United States’ system of government, the states are the laboratories of experimentation. But, given the paralysis of federal congressional leadership today, the states have proven to be so much more. Right now, they are in the vanguard of tech policy, enacting laws addressed to issues at the forefront of voters’ minds. Over the past couple of years, dozens of US states have enacted laws aimed at regulating social media. These statutes can be lumped into three categories: content moderation, data protection, and child online safety laws.
Below is an overview of the types of laws that fall under each category. Of course, this isn’t the only way to organize these new laws, nor is this overview comprehensive. Instead, it is an outline of the basic elements of the state laws for the purposes of this symposium.
Read “States in the Vanguard: Social Media Policy Today” on Tech Policy Press.
Read “States in the Vanguard: Social Media Policy Today” on Just Security.
Editor’s Note: This post is part of Regulating Social Media Platforms: Government, Speech, and the Law, a symposium series organized by Just Security, the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, and Tech Policy Press.