The Effective Regulation of Social Media

This work is a summary essay in support of my PhD by published works. At its broadest level, my book The Handbook of Social Media and the Law, considers the array of overlapping and existing legislation that seeks to 'govern' social media platforms and social media users, analysing from both criminal and civil perspectives the laws that regulate the way in which stakeholders are able to interact with social media. In my book, I analyse the law doctrinally and offer a contemporary analysis of social media as an ever-shifting "lawscape", which continually presents regulatory challenges. Drawing on this this systematic doctrinal analysis, I have subsequently been able to consider from a theoretical and conceptual perspective the effectiveness of the regulation of social media, which has allowed me to offer an original analysis, which any future effective regulation in this area must acknowledge, namely that the regulation of social media will always retain an element of reactivity to technological development. In this summary, I therefore suggest that, as underpinned by my doctrinal analysis, a regulatory model must be devised that can grow with technology, that is alive to cultural sensitivities and the organisational constraints of both the regulator and regulated entities. In this summary, I therefore assert that truly responsive social media regulation would embrace and engage with the disruptive nature of the environment which it seeks to assist, rather than command.