LAW2556 Civil and Criminal Issues in the Digital World

Digital platforms have greatly impacted the society in the recent years and this is vividly evident with the current trends in the digital space. There needs to be some form regulation to limit its prevalence. The negative impact was suffered in the US capitol early this year when the supporters of the incumbent Donald Trump tried to disrupt the validation of the votes by the Electoral College. The occurrences of that incident were provoked in the social media space and this to some extent caused uproar in the United States. There was misuse of the social media space with peddling of fake news and propaganda to a greater extent. There were false accusations that were being peddled on Facebook and Twitter about the rigging of the votes. It was until this occurrence the social media platform termed some of the posts as unreliable and untrue with some being prompted to be removed in the social media space.

The digital platforms can be profitable businesses that connect marketers to other social media users but can at times be misused to feed the general public with fake information. Selling of advertisements has been earning the social media marketers a good earning but used it an avenue to manipulate shared information. This draws a dilemma where it becomes difficult to draw a line that will cut off the misusers of such spaces without harming those who harness the space for the good. The question that remain unanswered is as to whether the government should intrude in setting up regulations to curb the use of the digital space or should the companies that are involved allows to operate business on their own terms. Government intervention to regulate can be problematic in limiting the profit margin but at the same time can be beneficial to help in the curbing of ill motivated information peddlers in the digital space. Nevertheless, self-regulation should be approached more aggressively in this digital age.

The viability of self-regulation of the digital platforms can only be understood from the point of origin to the benefits accrued over the years. When the digital space is lest unregulated, its misuse can be encouraged and this can reach a point of breakdown. The social space gives its users the benefit of the doubt but some decide not to use the digital space without harming the rest of its users. The social media platforms should be accessed by all individuals in equal measure but it becomes problematic when this privilege is misused to peddle fake news Facebook and Twitter, for example, has faced an equal share in battling with menace of fake news and as much cyberbullying. LinkedIn should be platform for serious professional’s business dealings but it becomes a wonder to see some individuals share information not professionally related. The purpose for which a digital platform was created has become replaced by this has been made secondary. Fighting the unintended use of the social space can be achieved but it would mean touching some nerves to achieve it. These measures on the other hand can cause harm to those who benefit from the unregulated advertisements. Platforms may evolve to something they were not intended to perform. As first, it may seem bad but this, but the monetary benefit to the consumers overrules the argument. This tragedy of the norms has been suffered across the different platforms in equal measure. Smaller platforms can manage to have some set of guidelines on use but this could as a result of the adoption of the norm from the initial users of the platform.

Before the discovery of the internet most industries and especially television broadcasting and on-screen airline systems issues to do with the tragedy of the commons was prevalent. This was however tackled with swiftness and to some extent self-regulatory measures yielded success to some extent.  This evidently revealed that government threat to intervene in regulate forced this industry to maintain discipline to self-regulate. In the past few years, the film industry has face issues to do with the appropriateness of the kind of the content they feed their viewers. They have been able to manage the content they release to a given number of users through imposing rules of who should view what. As much, they have been able to keep the regulators out of their lane through a self-made rating system that categorizes the various films. This habit has found itself to the modern day with most if not all of the production houses self-regulating on their content. The same issues faced by the digital platforms are the safe issue faced by the broadcasting industries that existed before the internet.

Self-regulation has proven the preference as compared to government intervention to regulate in the digital platforms. The former has been proven to be more effective in the sense that the participants of the digital industry are more aware of the implications of the industry. The government agencies rely on third part information to know the when to draw the line. This makes the government regulations ineffective where technicalities are involved in setting out measures and regulations. The appropriate rules can therefore be wells set out by those who interact by the industry on a daily. The government in this case should play the role of a watch dog rather than get involved directly. The changing circumstances in media need a regulator that would be more flexible in setting out rules of regulations of governance. The government regulations would need to undo multiple layers of provisions to change the regulations. The government regulations work from the angle of general rule and it at times becomes difficult to change a rule to solely affect the digital media player in hand. There needs to a self-regulatory mechanism that is tailored towards a specific set of industry. The government imposed regulation would have worked where monopolistic power in industry was the case but could be a menace in space where there is a sheer magnitude of individualized problems. Rules and regulations set out by the players of the industry tend to be friendlier since they seem more reasonable to its creators. There is a greater likelihood of compliance when the rules are set out by familiar faces rather than outsiders. It is even less costly to self-regulate with the government being the beneficiary. The government only plays the role of oversight while the cost of developing rules of regulation is solely the burden of the digital space players.

As much as self-regulation could be a better option in the case of technical expertise, it cannot be assumed that the self-regulators may use this freedom to benefit themselves at the expense of the public. The idea that the players in the industry are more likely to follow its own regulations questions the tightness of such regulation and how effective they could be. The industry can to some extent invent regulations that will accrue benefits to them and that will make them least accountable. The necessary pressure is required to put digital players on their toes to ensure the greater benefit is not discriminatory to the public. An act of good faith is questionable when it comes to self-regulated organizations. The sufficiency of the enforcement of sanctions remains to be questioned for its inadequacy and this cause foster cheating in compliance. Lack of sufficient motivations to comply can push some to comply as required while those that do will be disadvantaged in various aspects. As much as self-regulation is beneficial, the government should play the role of the ombudsman to root out any sprouting cartels. The cartels could be the initiators of the exploitative conduct that can in turn foster a culture of antitrust concerns by the government. The government involvement to check the viability of the rules of regulation can go a long way to check the accuracy of the compliance information.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) have made great strides over the years to address the issues governing self-regulation in the digital media platforms. The significant change in thinking has greatly been informed by change of thought that the digital space could be subjected to government regulations. Digital regulations have been relooked over the years to suit the expanse of the digital space. With the impact of the democratic process, there have been so much misappropriation of the freedom of speech with some quotas circulating ideologically motivated information that at times at time go to the extent of fabrication to suit the needs of the consumers of such fake news. The rules governing communication in the digital space has been looked into to touch on the regulations that govern the use of internet in relation to Google and Facebook.  The history of the television broadcasting has taught us that the regulations are not necessarily about the issues of media policy but is relooked to the issue of governance that touches other bodies that relate to the digital platforms. Over reliance on self-regulation of the digital platform players have seen the public concerns being ignored and insufficiently being addressed. The public outcry has been impatient and pushy in the cry for government intervention in enforcing sanctions against the notorious corporate thespians. This has pushed for a wakeup call for government regulations in legislating measures that can curb these corporate bodies and compel them to societal demands.

An inquiry into the matter of digital transformations in self-governance was presented by the Liberal-National party government in July, 2019 to address the issue to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.  The report majorly tacked the issue of communication especially in the delivery of the news. The issue of market control over the access information of the consumers and as much the anti-competitive practices. Despite the strides made to transform the laws and regulations that govern the operation of media, the acquisition of the metropolitan daily in Western Sydney remains to be the most notable. It wasn’t until of late that the revised media ownership laws were adopted in legislation. The inquiry mainly focused on Google and Facebook in consideration of their market dominance. This was informed by the fact that as much as they served a greater purpose, they were on the possibility of being impervious in how they self-regulated. The emergence of the monopolies in the last two centuries had seen the rise of disruption of user-centric habits that rather focused on anti-competitiveness. The main concern is to when the government should step in to restrain the big giants in the digital platforms.

The tremendous progress in the regulation of the Australian digital space has been impactful at a global reach to inspire some the countries in the same case scenario. The foreseeable impact of the digital platforms has on a greater length being linked with the delivery of the news. The domestic publishes has been a mismatch to the newsfeed on Facebook and Google and has seen a fall in the traditional model of doing business.

References

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