‘Search and social digital platforms, democracy and citizen exposure to speech pluralism in Australia.’

Thesis

The business success of search and social digital platforms relies on an atomised approach to content dissemination. Algorithms rank and prioritise content to engage users and sell targeted advertising opportunities. Scholarship has produced divided results on the question of whether platform algorithms are harming democracy by limiting citizens’ exposure to a plurality of speech in several respects (including, though not limited to, by way of creating echo-chambers). Arguably, this division is a product of two methodological issues. Firstly, scholars struggle to obtain quantitative data measuring whether platforms limit exposure to speech; and secondly differences in their theoretical understandings of the purpose and structures of democracy have led to the absence of a uniform standard across scholarship against which harm to democracy is measured. In light of this, the Australian Government has suggested regulation cannot be justified. This thesis further considers this question. Its object is to yield a practical result for Australian lawmakers and as such, it looks to navigate the existing methodological issues. It does this firstly by employing doctrinal analysis – considering whether ‘exposure to speech pluralism’ is a structural requirement of Australia’s democracy as established by the Constitution. It finds that although no such requirement exists, the Legislature has, to some degree, sought to establish it. Specifically, the Legislature has made two value judgements about the extent to which this should be established. This thesis then assesses platform markets and products against these value judgements – finding that their concentrated market structure, and feed of content, personalised for (not by) the citizen, fall short. As such, it suggests Australian democratic standards require platform algorithms to facilitate a greater availability of plural political communication; and consequently, that regulation is warranted. This paper concludes by briefly recommending areas of law which may successfully regulate this aspect of platforms, for further research.

Authors: Wiggins, E

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-yeowpvenx
• Type of award: MPhil
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: speech; competition law; Meta; constitutional law; Australian constitutional law; implied freedom of political communication; free speech; digital platforms; Australia
• Subjects: Law