The digital world is expanding and transforming at an unprecedented pace. Social media platforms now serve billions, and new channels for user-generated content emerge constantly, from live-streaming services to collaborative workspaces and niche forums. This rapid growth has also made it easier for harmful, illegal, or misleading content to spread widely and quickly, with real-world consequences for individuals, businesses, and society at large.
In response, governments and regulatory bodies worldwide are stepping up their scrutiny and tightening requirements around content moderation. New laws and stricter enforcement aim to address issues like hate speech, misinformation, online harassment, and child protection. The goal is to create safer digital spaces, but the impact on platform operators is profound – those who fail to implement effective moderation strategies risk heavy fines and serious reputational damage.
If your business hosts any form of user-generated content – whether posts, images, videos, or posts – you can’t afford to ignore these developments. This article will guide you through the major content moderation regulations shaping today’s digital environment. Knowing these regulations is essential to protect both your platform and its users in a world where the expectations and penalties for content moderation have never been higher.
Contents
Content Moderation and The Need for Regulations
In essence, content moderation entails the monitoring of user-generated content, so that hate speech, misinformation, harmful and explicit content can be effectively tackled before reaching users. Today the process is typically executed as a mix between automated content moderation powered by AI and input from human moderators on sensitive and contentious issues.
While effective content moderation depends on tech companies, different regulatory bodies across the world have taken on to create legal frameworks. They set the standards and guide the moderation measures that social media and digital platforms have to apply. Major cases of harmful content mishandling have led to these regulatory actions by national and multinational authorities.
However, getting the rules right is not an easy feat. Regulations have to balance between protecting society from dangerous and illegal content while preserving the basic right of free expression and allowing online communities to thrive.
The Major Content Moderation Regulations Around the World
It’s challenging to impose content moderation rules worldwide, so a number of national and international bodies have created regulations that apply to their territories.
European Union: DSA and GDPR
The European Union has introduced two main digital regulation acts: the Digital Services Act (DSA) that came in full force in February 2024 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applied since 2018.
The purpose of the DSA is to provide a comprehensive framework for compliance that digital platforms have to adhere to. It requires online platforms and businesses to provide a sufficient level of transparency and accountability to their users and to legislators, as well as to protect users from harmful content specifically.
Some specific examples include requirements for algorithm transparency, content reporting options for users, statements of reasons for content removal, options to challenge content moderation decisions, and more. In case of non-compliance with the DSA, companies can face penalties of up to 6% of their global annual turnover.
The GDPR, on the other hand, targets data protection and privacy. Its goal is to regulate the way companies deal with user data in general, and in particular during the process of content moderation.
USA: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act
The USA has its own piece of legislation that addresses the challenges in content moderation. This is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. It makes it possible for online platforms to moderate content, as well as taking away from them the liability for user-generated content.
At the same time, Section 230 is currently under fire for not being able to address the recent developments in the digital world, and in particular generative AI. There are worries that it would be used by companies developing generative AI to escape legal responsibilities for potential harmful effects of their products.
UK: Online Safety Bill
At the end of 2023, the Online Safety Bill came into force in the United Kingdom after years in the making. Its main goal is to protect minors from harmful and explicit content and to make technological companies take charge of content on their platforms.
In particular, the Bill requires social media and online platforms to be responsible for removing content containing child abuse, sexual violence, self-harm, illegal drugs, weapons, cyber-flashing, and more. They should also require age verification where applicable.
A number of other countries have enforced national rules for content moderation that apply to online businesses, including European countries like Germany but also others like Australia, Canada, and India.
Challenges of Content Moderation Regulations
The difficulties of creating and enforcing content moderation regulations are manyfold.
The major challenge is the intricate balancing act between protecting people from harmful content and at the same time, upholding freedom of speech and expression and people’s privacy. When rules become too strict, they threaten to suffocate public and private communication online — and to overly monitor and regulate it. On the other hand, without clear content moderation regulations, it’s up to companies and their internal policies to provide a sufficient level of protection for their users.
This makes the process of drafting content moderation regulations complex and time consuming. Regulatory bodies have to pass the legal texts through numerous stages of consultations with different actors, including consumer representative groups, digital businesses, and various other stakeholders. Finding a solution that is fair to parties with divergent interests is challenging, and more often than not, lawmakers end up in situations of compliance rejection and lawsuits.
A clear example of this conundrum is the recently enacted Online Safety Bill in the UK. It aims to make tech companies more responsible for the content that gets published on their digital channels and platforms. Even though its purpose is clear and commendable — to protect children online — the bill is still contentious.
One of the Online Safety Bill requirements is especially controversial, as it requires messaging platforms to screen user communication for child abuse material. WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage have declared that they cannot comply with that rule without hurting the end-to-end encryption of user communication, which is meant to protect privacy. The privacy-focused email platform Proton has expressed a strong opinion against this rule, too, since it allows government interference in and screening of private communication.
The UK’s Online Safety Bill is just one example of many content moderation regulations that have come under fire from different interest groups. In general, laws in this area are complex to draft and enforce — especially given the constantly evolving technology and the respective concerns that come up.
The Responsibility of Tech Companies
Technology businesses have a lot on their plate in relation to content moderation. There are both legal and ethical considerations, having in mind that a number of online platforms cater mostly to minors and young people, who are the most vulnerable.
The main compliance requirements for digital companies vary across different territories, which makes it difficult for international businesses to navigate them. In the general case, they include child protection, harmful and illegal content removal, and disinformation and fraud protection, but every country or territory can and does enforce additional requirements. For example, the EU also includes content moderation transparency, content removal reports, and moderation decisions.
Major social media platforms have had difficult moments in handling content moderation in recent years. One example is the reaction to the COVID-19 misinformation during the pandemic. YouTube enforced a strict strategy for removing videos but was accused of censorship. In other cases, like the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, Facebook was accused of not taking enough steps to moderate content in conflict zones, thus contributing to violence.
There have been other long-standing disagreements about social media moderation, and nudity is a particularly difficult topic. Instagram and Facebook have been attacked for censorship of artistic female nudity and of breastfeeding. At the same time, Snapchat has been accused of its AI bot, which is producing adult-containing text in its communication with minors. It’s more than obvious that striking the right balance is tough for tech companies, as it is for regulators.
Emerging Trends in Content Moderation Regulations
Content regulation laws and policies need to evolve constantly to address the changing technological landscape. A clear illustration of this is the rise of generative AI and the lack of a legal framework to handle it. While the EU’s Digital Services Act came into force recently, it was drafted before generative AI exploded — so it doesn’t particularly address its new challenges. The new AI Act will partially come into force in 2025 and fully in 2026, but the tech advancements by then might already make it insufficient.
The clear trend in content moderation laws is towards increased monitoring and accountability of technological companies with the goal of user protection, especially of vulnerable groups like children and minorities. New regulations focus on the accountability and transparency of digital platforms to their users and to the regulating bodies. This is attuned to societal expectations for national and international regulators to step into the game — and exercise control over tech companies. At the same time, court rulings and precedents will also shape the regulatory landscape, as business and consumer groups challenge in court certain aspects of the new rules.
In the race to catch up with new technology and its implications, global synchronisation of content moderation standards will likely be a solution that regulators will seek. It would require international cooperation and cross-border enforcement. This may be good news for digital companies because they would have to deal with unified rules, rather than having to adhere to different regulations in different territories.
It is likely that these trends will continue while seeking a balance with censorship and privacy concerns. For digital companies, the regulatory shifts will certainly have an impact on operations. While it’s difficult to know what potential laws and policies might be, the direction towards user protection is clear. The wisest course of action is thus to focus on creating safe and fair digital spaces while keeping up-to-date with developments in the regulatory framework locally and internationally.
Best Practices for Regulatory Compliance
The complex reality of content moderation and its regulations today is that it requires digital companies to pay special attention and dedicate resources.
In particular, it’s a good idea for businesses to:
- Use the most advanced content moderation tools to ensure user protection
- Create and enforce community guidelines, as well as Trust and Safety protocols
- Stay informed about developments in the content moderation regulations landscape
- Be transparent and clear with users regarding your content moderation policies
- Have special training and information sessions for their teams on the regulatory framework and its application in internal rules
- Collaborate with other companies, regulators, and interest groups in the devising of new regulations
- Have legal expertise internally or as an external service
All in all, putting user safety and privacy first has become a priority for digital businesses in their efforts to meet ethical and legal requirements worldwide.