The Challenges of Regulation and Accountability in Social Media

Abstract

Facebook and other social media platforms (SMPs) ventured far from being generally understood as actors for the common good. The paper focuses on the issue of accountability while it examines the regulatory approaches towards the platforms. In particular, the paper asks, first, what are the factors suggesting the lack of accountability of SMPs; second, whether SMP may be efficiently regulated by currently available regulatory mechanisms, in particular by competition law after the Bundeskartellalmt Facebook decision; and third, what the underlying problems of regulating the platforms are.