Cullen International's Global Trends experts just published a new benchmark analysing different aspects of social media regulation across 13 jurisdictions around the world.

Key takeaways:
 

• Some of the covered jurisdictions have imposed targeted bans on selected foreign social media platforms out of national security concerns.
   
• Six jurisdictions impose licensing or registration requirements on social media platforms. However, only two of them also mandate the establishment of a local subsidiary on foreign platforms offering social media services.
   
• Only one jurisdiction covered in this report currently mandates social media platforms to check the real identity of their users. And another one has imposed an outright ban on social media services for minors below the age of 16.
   
• Several jurisdictions covered in this benchmark mandate the use of age verification systems to enable access to content restricted to minors. Four of them are now planning to update the age verification methods currently in use.
   
• Some jurisdictions covered in this benchmark have created a single authority in charge of supervising social media platforms. More are considering doing so.
   
• Platforms’ liabilities on content shared by their users vary considerably across jurisdictions. Liabilities depend on safe harbour regimes in place, as well as on the type of content shared on social media by end users.
  The report analyses for each jurisdiction six types of content: disinformation, incitement to violence and hate speech, pornography, content infringing copyright, scams, and blasphemy.
   
• Among the 13 jurisdictions covered, three already have legislation mandating that online platforms pay news publishers for content made available on their platforms. This issue is currently debated in six other jurisdictions covered in this report.

The report covers: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the EU, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, the UK, and the US.

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