Moć bez odgovornosti: politike moderacije sadržaja online-platformi u borbi protiv infodemije
Power without responsibility: the content moderation policies of the online platforms in the response to infodemic

Summary/Abstract: The paper provides an overview of the policies enrolled by the leading online platforms in the response to misinformation and infodemic around the COVID-19 pandemic. It further discusses the consequences these policies may have on media pluralism and informed citizenship both directly or indirectly, as well as in the short or long term. The method is an analysis of documents published by selected platforms to communicate changes in their content moderation policies in the period between the start of the novel coronavirus crisis in February and 31 July 2020, and it includes also the reports submitted to the European Commission in August 2020 to report on measures platforms have implemented to limit the spread of COVID-19-related misinformation. The analysis suggests that the platforms have undoubtedly taken a number of potentially useful measures to address the challenges of false, misleading and harmful information in a pandemic, but almost every one of these measures carries also a potential risk to freedom of expression and pluralism. These risks do not arise primarily from the initiatives themselves but rather from a lack of regulatory context and strong imbalance between accountability and the power that the platforms hold.

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