Optimising Industry-led Regulation for the Digital Platform Era

Funding: 2023: $116,092
2024: $150,284
2025: $120,075

Project Member(s): Wilding, D., Lindsay, D., Stuhmcke, A., Lee, K.

Funding or Partner Organisation: Australian Research Council (Australian Research Council Special International)
Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Projects)

Start year: 2023

Summary: The aim of this project is to demonstrate how effectively designed and implemented co-regulation – where industry develops rules that are enforced by a regulator – can address harms caused by digital platforms. Widely used in the broader communications sector, co-regulation remains chronically under-theorised and its effectiveness has never been adequately reviewed. This research will provide an evidential base for optimising co-regulation in the contemporary Australian communications environment, benefiting regulators seeking to meet public policy goals; consumers experiencing online harms; and platforms themselves, who might otherwise be subject to blunt regulatory tools.

FOR Codes: Expanding knowledge in law and legal studies, Communication technologies, systems and services not elsewhere classified, Internet, digital and social media, Media and communication law, Communications and media policy

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.