Evolving Legal Responses to Social Media: Litigation, Legislation and System Architecture

Abstract

Social media facilitates online interaction, enabling users to post self-generated content and engage with others and form networks with people with similar interests. Social media providers use ‘attention based’ business models, generating revenue through the sale of advertising opportunities to other businesses and trading in consumer data, including detailed user profiles and data-mining analysis. In recent years, this has been a vibrant area of Australian law, highlighting a number of regulatory approaches. Recent developments include the High Court decision in Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd v Voller, the Social Media (Anti-Trolling) Bill 2022 (Cth) and discussion of a registration system for social media account holders. This article examines the law relating to social media in Australia, considering present and potential future approaches to addressing the complex issues associated with social media. It considers whether combining legislation and regulatory constraints imposed through system architecture should be considered in light of the scale, global impact and technical sophistication of social media technology.

Keywords: Social Media, Regulation, System Architecture, Online Defamation, Online Offences