A.
Online social networks that allow users to communicate with and be visible to other
users, and inter alia, also share information, positions, and opinions (e.g., Facebook).
B.
Online search engines that facilitate searching for and retrieving information
available on the internet (e.g., Google).
C.
Providers of hosting services for building and storing various internet sites. (In
accordance with a work procedure appended to the Respondents’ preliminary response,
titled: “Treatment of unlawful contents published in cyberspace” (hereinafter: the Work
Procedure)).
8.
There would not appear to be any need to discuss the centrality of the above online
platforms, which in our current digital age are a center for transmitting and exchanging views, and
operate the space in which that discourse occurs. In the absence of regulatory legislation in the
area, they also have the power to define the boundaries of the discourse and establish, inter alia,
the rules for what is permitted and prohibited in all that concerns expression and the sharing of
content on the net. Accordingly, each such platform operator establishes conditions for use or
service, and “community rules” that apply to and obligate those seeking to use the social network
or the search engine it operates. (See Prof. Balkin’s article: Jack M. Balkin, Free Speech is a
Triangle, 118 COLUM. L. REV. 2011 (2018) (hereinafter: Balkin, Triangle)).
In the framework of the preliminary response, the Respondents presented such rules, which
were brought to its attention, that prohibit publication of content, including statements of intentions
to commit violent acts, or support for terrorist organizations, as well as incitement and hate speech,
or information likely to infringe the privacy of others. It further arises from the material presented
to us that various operators also established a general prohibition in their “community rules” upon
activity that violates local law. Common to all these conditions for use (or, at least, to all the
operators whose community rules were presented to us) is that every user of the online platform,
or any person exposed to the publication (whether a person, a corporation or a governmental
authority) is afforded the possibility of reporting that a publication violates the platform’s rules,
and that the decision as to how to act after the online platform operator is informed of a publication
that appears to be harmful is, apparently, given to the exclusive discretion of the platform operator.
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