Department of Social Science
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Browsing Department of Social Science by Subject "Human society"
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Item Open Access Defunding Hate: PayPal’s Regulation of Hate Groups(Queen's University Library, 2019-03-31) Tusikov, NatashaThe riot by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, generated a public debate about the role of platforms in policing users involved in violent hate speech. PayPal’s efforts on this issue, in removing services from some designated hate groups while continuing to serve others, highlights the challenges payment platforms face when they act, whether formally or informally, as regulators. This article examines PayPal’s policies and enforcement efforts, both proactive and reactive, in removing its services from hate groups in the United States. It pays particular attention to the surveillance and screening practices that PayPal employs to proactively detect users who violate its policies. The article argues that public calls for PayPal to identify and remove its services from hate groups raise critical questions about ceding broad regulatory authority to platforms and reveal the serious challenges of relying upon commercial enterprises to address complex social problems.Item Open Access How US-made rules shape internet governance in China(Internet Policy Review, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, 2019-06-30) Tusikov, NatashaThe United States is shaping Chinese internet governance by embedding US-preferred standards for the protection of intellectual property rights within Chinese platforms. As a result, the China-based Alibaba e-commerce giant has instituted US-drafted rules to deal with the sale of counterfeit goods. To explain this development, the article introduces the concept of compliance-plus regulation, which draws from regulatory theory and socio-legal studies to account for the state coercively pressuring one set of private actors (platforms) to regulate “voluntarily” on behalf of another set of private actors (rights holders). Drawing upon an analysis of documents from the US government, US industry, and Alibaba, the article finds that while economic pressure on Alibaba was a central factor, there are also common economic interests between Alibaba and US and European rights holders.Item Open Access Regulation through “bricking”: private ordering in the “Internet of Things”(Internet Policy Review, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, 2019-06-18) Tusikov, NatashaInternet-enabled “smart products” operate through networked software that links the devices to their manufacturers’ servers to enable the collection and distribution of data, and, as a result, these products are vulnerable to software disruption. This article examines “regulation by bricking”, which refers to the deliberate impairment or destruction of software with the intention of negatively affecting product functionality. The article argues that companies are employing bricking within a system of private ordering that is reshaping the governance of physical objects, as companies can arbitrarily and remotely affect the functionality of any software-enabled device and even determine product’s lifespan. Further, the article contends that through companies’ post-purchase regulation of internet-connected goods, “Internet of Things” (IoT) firms have an unfair capacity to impose their preferred policies unilaterally, automatically, and remotely. Control over software thus enables control over hardware. This private ordering occurs within a regulatory framework in which IoT companies use restrictive licensing agreements to govern the use of the products’ software. With a focus on the governance of consumer-oriented IoT goods within the United States, the article draws upon the law and technology literature to explain bricking as a form of techno-regulation, which is the deliberate use of technology as a regulatory instrument (Brownsword, 2005), through an analysis of manufacturers’ licensing agreements for smart products.