7. Approval and application of regulation
7.1 While these are measures that could affect fundamental rights, the substantive aspects of the regulation proposed in this document should be adopted beforehand and by formal law, that is, a law approved by the legislative body (Congress, Parliament, National Assembly or similar), after public and open consultation. When necessary, regulatory delegations in enforcement agencies should be carefully established by law.
7.2 Content platforms should not depend on licenses for their operation in a given country, but there must be an obligation to identify legal officers and effective forms of communication and response for users and the respective authorities such as an email account, an electronic form, or equivalent means1.
7.3 Content platforms should not be obliged to monitor or supervise content generated by third parties, in a generic way, in order to detect alleged current violations of the law or to prevent future infractions2.
7.4 The operation of the content platforms should be framed in an environment of co-regulation appropriate to the characteristics of the digital environment:
a. The principles and standards included in this proposal should be included by the content platforms in their terms of service and other complementary documents (such as guidelines);
b. Platforms should apply these principles and standards without prior intervention by state agencies;
c. Platforms should have internal and effective mechanisms of appeal, as well as external bodies independent of the companies for the review of cases and policies adopted, with the understanding that state regulation should act only when the instances of self-regulation do not work;
d. There should be a specialized regulatory body that operates with sufficient guarantees of independence, autonomy and impartiality and that has the capacity to evaluate the rights at stake and offer the necessary guarantees to the user3 on the policies and practices of implementation of the terms of service of the platforms, and indicate the adequacy of them when appropriate. In case of non-compliance with the obligations of transparency, due process, right to defense and others, the agency must have sufficient enforcement capacity, being able to apply sanctions, if necessary. However, it should not evaluate or have a binding decision in individual cases;
e. Individual cases where there is a violation of user rights and that are not satisfactorily resolved within the internal scopes and mechanisms for dispute resolution should be resolved by judicial bodies, Public Defenders or similar independent and specialized public bodies. -of the country where the user has his habitual residence- by means of an abbreviated procedure, of digital procedure and electronic notification (fast track) with guarantees of revision by an impartial authority. Other authorities or state agencies should not be able to force platforms to remove or process specific content.
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1 Extracted from the draft Law of Intermediaries of Argentina, art. 7
2 Extracted from the draft Law of Intermediaries of Argentina, art. 5
3In terms expressed in Freedom of expression and the Internet, Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression IACHR, 2013, para. 56
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