CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Li, Yilan |
|---|---|
| Title | Who Controls Online Free Speech: State Regulation and Platform Power in Online Moderation |
| Summary | This thesis examines how online speech is governed through three competing models—classical liberalism, notice-and-takedown regulation, and platform self-regulation—framed through the theoretical lens of the free speech triangle, which conceptualizes the interaction between states, platforms, and users. The first part analyzes the U.S. model grounded in classical liberalism, where Section 230 shields platforms from liability and state interference. The second explores the notice-and-takedown model, exemplified by the European Union’s Digital Services Act and national laws such as Germany’s NetzDG and France’s SREN law, which impose legal obligations on platforms to remove illegal or harmful content. The third focuses on Meta’s Oversight Board as an experiment in digital constitutionalism, in which the platform applies international human rights norms to its own moderation practices. While each model aims to balance expression and harm, they present distinct risks of state overreach, private censorship, and regulatory fragility. Through comparative constitutional analysis, this thesis evaluates how different legal frameworks mediate the contested space of online free speech. |
| Supervisor | Soave, Tommaso |
| Department | Legal Studies LLM |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/li_yilan.pdf |
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