The public-private partnerships’ impact on transparency and effectiveness in the EU internet content regulation : the case of “Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG)” in Germany

Abstract

This master’s thesis examined the internet content regulation in Germany from a perspective of Public-Private Partnerships. In the European Union, there has been a latest trend of initiatives aiming for combating illegal content online under the self-regulatory regime. Yet, concerns of this trend were that transparency cannot be ensured properly to safeguard the freedom of expression, and that the private intermediaries are not able to carry out effective regulation under the non-binding regulatory process. Due to these issues, Germany has legislated the Network Enforcement Act in 2017. This thesis used Mixed Methods within a Case Study Research, in order to identify the PPP type of the NetzDG, and to understand its link on transparency and effectiveness, as well as the relationship of these two dimensions. By taking an Exploratory Sequential Design, the German internet content regulation under the NetzDG was explored to understand its co-regulatory regime and to develop an instrument to measure the aspects of transparency and effectiveness. Then, the three big social media platforms, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, were examined according to the developed indicators. This thesis concluded as follow: First, the enactment of the NetzDG brought the shift of the regulatory paradigm from the self-regulatory to the co-regulatory. Yet, the actor-inclusive institutional arrangement of the NetzDG did not successfully result in the actual inclusion of actors in decision-making, but only improved the result transparency in the disclosure of take-down actions. Second, the level of effective regulation was not consistent across the three social media platforms under this regime. Despite these limitations, this study showed that the transparency and the effectiveness of the social media platforms’ implementation gradually improved together, instead of having a negative correlation to one another.