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Elections, institutions, and the regulatory politics of platform governance: The case of the German NetzDG

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  • Gorwa, Robert

Abstract

Policy proposals for higher rules and standards governing how major user-generated content platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube moderate socially problematic content have become increasingly prevalent since the negotiation of the German Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) in 2017. Although a growing body of scholarship has emerged to assess the normative and legal dimensions of these regulatory developments in Germany and beyond, the legal scholarship on intermediary liability leaves key questions about why and how these policies are developed, shaped, and adopted unanswered. The goal of this article is thus to provide a deep case study into the NetzDG from a regulatory politics perspective, highlighting the importance of political and regulatory factors currently under-explored in the burgeoning interdisciplinary literatures on platform governance and platform regulation. The empirical account presented here, which draws on 30 interviews with stakeholders involved in the debate around the NetzDG's adoption, as well as hundreds of pages of deliberative documents obtained via freedom of information access requests, outlines how the NetzDG took shape, and how it overcame various significant obstacles (ranging from resistance from other stakeholders and the European Union's frameworks against regulatory fragmentation) to eventually become law. The article argues, throughout this case study, that both domestic politics and transnational institutional constraints are crucial policy factors that should receive more attention as an important part of platform regulation debates.

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  • Gorwa, Robert, 2021. "Elections, institutions, and the regulatory politics of platform governance: The case of the German NetzDG," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(6).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:45:y:2021:i:6:s0308596121000495
    DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2021.102145
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Gorwa, Robert, 2019. "What is Platform Governance?," SocArXiv fbu27, Center for Open Science.
    2. Gorwa, Robert, 2019. "The platform governance triangle: conceptualising the informal regulation of online content," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 8(2), pages 1-22.
    3. Oliver Westerwinter, 2021. "Transnational public-private governance initiatives in world politics: Introducing a new dataset," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 137-174, January.
    4. Heldt, Amélie, 2019. "Reading between the lines and the numbers: an analysis of the first NetzDG reports," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 8(2), pages 1-18.
    5. Gorwa, Robert, 2019. "The platform governance triangle: conceptualising the informal regulation of online content," SocArXiv tgnrj, Center for Open Science.
    6. Frosio, Giancarlo, 2017. "Reforming Intermediary Liability in the Platform Economy: A European Digital Single Market Strategy," SocArXiv w7fxv, Center for Open Science.
    7. Gillespie, Tarleton & Aufderheide, Patricia & Carmi, Elinor & Gerrard, Ysabel & Gorwa, Robert & Matamoros-Fernández, Ariadna & Roberts, Sarah T. & Sinnreich, Aram & Myers West, Sarah, 2020. "Expanding the debate about content moderation: Scholarly research agendas for the coming policy debates," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 9(4), pages 1-29.
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    Cited by:

    1. Pohle, Julia & Voelsen, Daniel, 2022. "Centrality and power. The struggle over the techno‐political configuration of the Internet and the global digital order," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 14(1), pages 13-27.
    2. Griffin, Rachel, 2022. "New school speech regulation as a regulatory strategy against hate speech on social media: The case of Germany's NetzDG," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(9).

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