Daphne Keller's work focuses on platform regulation and internet users' rights, including legal protections for users’ free expression rights when state and private power intersect, particularly through platforms’ enforcement of Terms of Service or use of algorithmic ranking and recommendations. Previously, Daphne was the Director of Intermediary Liability at Stanford's Center for Internet and Society. She also served as Associate General Counsel for Google, where she had primary responsibility for the company’s search products.
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Platform liability disputes typically involve three competing interests. So why are only two parties represented in litigation?
What’s the best path forward for platform transparency regulation?
The Adalah ruling highlights an unresolved tension between widely held goals for restricting online content and the constitutionally permissible means available to achieve them.
This essay closely examines the effect on free-expression rights when platforms such as Facebook or YouTube silence their users’ speech. The first part describes the often messy blend of government and private power behind many content removals, and discusses how the combination undermines users’ rights to challenge state action. The second part explores the legal minefield for users—or potentially, legislators—claiming a right to speak on major platforms.
Public demands for internet platforms to intervene more aggressively in online content are steadily mounting. Calls for companies like YouTube and Facebook to fight problems ranging from “fake news” to virulent misogyny to online radicalization seem to make daily headlines. British prime minister Theresa May echoed the politically prevailing sentiment in Europe when she urged platforms to “go further and faster” in removing prohibited content, including through use of automated filters.