What is the difference between regulation by platforms and regulation of platforms?

Regulation by platforms is how IT companies de facto regulate social and political life through their own rules and moderation. Regulation of platforms is how governments try to regulate those companies.

In content moderation the two meet. The EU involves platforms in what can be called a public-private co-production of security. For example, its regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online tries to steer the platforms' private decisions on removing content. The UN criticised the regulation's overly broad definition of terrorist content, which can also cover legitimate speech protected by international human-rights law.

Content moderation is a control mechanism, so three questions always apply: who makes the decisions, how they are made, and who benefits from them.

One consequence of the territorial link: an EU removal order only binds within the EU. A company that decides the content does not breach its terms of service can, in principle, keep it online outside the EU.

Go deeper:

• Bellanova & de Goede (2022): Co-Producing Security, platform content moderation and European security integration — open-access paper behind the "public-private co-production" idea.