This new Global Trends research by Cullen International shows that the regulation of social media and video sharing platforms has a growing political dimension.

While only very few countries have started to restrict (or are proposing to restrict) domestic accessibility of some foreign platforms, in most countries there is increasing regulatory intervention on certain aspects such as taxation, regulatory oversight, and to counter the spreading of illegal content.

On this last point, each country defines what is illegal and what platforms should do to counter the spread of the illegal content.

Terrorist content, incitement to violence and hate speech are defined differently but in many countries legislation has been adopted or is proposed (including in Australia, China, Russia, Singapore, as well as in the European Union) which places legal obligations on platforms to remove such content.

Online misinformation is not illegal in most countries, but some governments are trying to fight the spread of fake news, especially during election campaigns.

The new global trend research published in October 2020 provides an overview of how social media and video-sharing platforms are currently regulated around the world. The main aspects analysed are:

• market entry conditions of social media and video sharing platforms, including licensing regimes, foreign ownership restrictions, and taxation;
• safe harbours regimes, including their scope and applicability; and
• treatment of key categories of illegal/harmful content, including child pornography, fake news, online piracy, and terrorist content amongst others.

The extensive benchmark provides full coverage of the regulatory landscape for social media in Australia, Brazil, China, the EU, France, India, Japan, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea and the US.

To access our global benchmark on social media regulation, please click on “Access the full content” to view the report - or on “Request Access”, in case you are not subscribed to our Global Trends service.