Wrongful moderation deals with internet intermediary service providers allowing users to provide and receive user-provided information. The central question in this dissertation is how these... Show moreWrongful moderation deals with internet intermediary service providers allowing users to provide and receive user-provided information. The central question in this dissertation is how these providers are provided with a legal incentive to overregulate or underregulate user-provided information based on its content. Providers that offer functionalities for user-provided information are criticised for failing to counter illegal content and overregulating content that is not illegal but considered harmful by the provider. In the United States of America and the European Union, legislation is proposed to remedy such overregulation and underregulation. Overregulation and underregulation could be tied to how the liability of service providers is regulated. Overregulation and underregulation may even occur when the provider is exempted from liability for the content of user-provided information – especially when this exemption is conditional. The central question in Wrongful moderation is to what extent the liability regimes in the e-Commerce Directive (EU) (enacted in 2000) and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) (enacted in 1996) (US) provide a legal incentive to overregulate or underregulate user-provided information. The focus lies on providers that offer an online platform to share and receive user-provided information because these providers are best placed to intervene in the content of user-provided information. Because of this intermediary position, these providers are the most popular targets for (state) regulation. Show less
This thesis deals with three restrictions on freedom of expression, namely 1) lèse-majesté (the insult to the national head of state; the monarch in a monarchy, or the president in a republic), 2)... Show moreThis thesis deals with three restrictions on freedom of expression, namely 1) lèse-majesté (the insult to the national head of state; the monarch in a monarchy, or the president in a republic), 2) the defamation of foreign heads of state, and 3) blasphemy (insulting religion or religious symbols). This thesis examines the background of these speech crimes, their (international) legal status, as well as their relationship to democratic free speech theory. Show less
