TY - JOUR
T1 - Using experimental evidence to improve delegated enforcement
AU - Fiala, Lenka
AU - Husovec, Martin
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding for the experiment provided by the Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC) and the CentERLab is gratefully acknowledged. We also thank Eric van Damme and Jan Potters for their feedback, as well as participants of the Prague Conference on Behavioral Sciences (2018), and seminar participants at the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Lund University, Tilburg University, and Masaryk University.
Funding Information:
Funding for the experiment provided by the Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC) and the CentERLab is gratefully acknowledged. We also thank Eric van Damme and Jan Potters for their feedback, as well as participants of the Prague Conference on Behavioral Sciences (2018), and seminar participants at the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Lund University, Tilburg University, and Masaryk University.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s)
PY - 2022/9
Y1 - 2022/9
N2 - Digital content today is governed by online providers like Facebook or YouTube. Increasingly, these providers are expected to enforce the law by removing illegal content, such as copyright infringement or hate speech. Typically, once they are notified of its existence, they have to assess it and, if infringing, remove it. Otherwise, they face liability. This system of content moderation is a form of delegation of the state's tasks to private parties. In literature, it is empirically established that some schemes of delegated enforcement can trigger substantial false positives, mostly due to over-compliance by providers and under-assertion of rights by affected content creators. This results in a phenomenon known as over-blocking: collateral removal of lawful content. We conduct a laboratory experiment to test a possible solution to this issue, as proposed by Husovec (2016). Our results show that an external dispute resolution mechanism subject to a particular fee structure can significantly reduce over-compliance by providers and improve the accuracy of their decisions, largely thanks to the content creators taking initiative. It does so by re-calibrating the typical asymmetry of incentives under the delegated enforcement schemes. The principles behind the solution have the potential to improve also other schemes of delegated enforcement where providers have weak incentives to properly execute delegated tasks in the public interest.
AB - Digital content today is governed by online providers like Facebook or YouTube. Increasingly, these providers are expected to enforce the law by removing illegal content, such as copyright infringement or hate speech. Typically, once they are notified of its existence, they have to assess it and, if infringing, remove it. Otherwise, they face liability. This system of content moderation is a form of delegation of the state's tasks to private parties. In literature, it is empirically established that some schemes of delegated enforcement can trigger substantial false positives, mostly due to over-compliance by providers and under-assertion of rights by affected content creators. This results in a phenomenon known as over-blocking: collateral removal of lawful content. We conduct a laboratory experiment to test a possible solution to this issue, as proposed by Husovec (2016). Our results show that an external dispute resolution mechanism subject to a particular fee structure can significantly reduce over-compliance by providers and improve the accuracy of their decisions, largely thanks to the content creators taking initiative. It does so by re-calibrating the typical asymmetry of incentives under the delegated enforcement schemes. The principles behind the solution have the potential to improve also other schemes of delegated enforcement where providers have weak incentives to properly execute delegated tasks in the public interest.
KW - Alternative dispute resolution
KW - Content moderation
KW - Copyright
KW - Lab experiment
KW - Notice and takedown
KW - Online enforcement
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133816676&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.irle.2022.106079
DO - 10.1016/j.irle.2022.106079
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85133816676
SN - 0144-8188
VL - 71
JO - International Review Of Law And Economics
JF - International Review Of Law And Economics
M1 - 106079
ER -