Abstract For years, social media platforms have been perceived as a democratic gain, facilitating freedom of expression, easy access to a variety of information, and new means of public participation. At the same time, social media have enabled the dissemination of illegal content and incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence, fuelling several content regulation initiatives. From the perspective of freedom of expression, this development embraces two challenges: first, private actors govern freedom of expression, without human rights safeguards; second, this privatised governance of human rights is encouraged and legitimised by a broad range of EU policy initiatives. Informed by an analysis of Danish Facebook users’ attitudes toward public debate on Facebook, we pose the question: How do social media companies such as Facebook balance various human rights considerations on their platforms, particularly in relation to freedom of expression? We analyse the abovementioned challenges through a human rights lens, which serves as the analytical framework for this article. Further, we suggest some strategies for moving forward, drawing on recent recommendations from the UN human rights system.

中文翻译：

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社交媒体平台上的表达自由的私人治理

摘要多年来，社交媒体平台一直被视为一种民主收益，它促进了言论自由，易于获取各种信息以及新的公众参与方式。同时，社交媒体已使非法内容的传播和煽动歧视，敌对或暴力行为成为可能，从而推动了一些内容监管举措。从言论自由的角度来看，这一发展面临两个挑战：首先，私人行为者在没有人权保障的情况下控制言论自由。其次，欧盟广泛的政策举措鼓励并合法化了这种私有化的人权治理。通过分析丹麦Facebook用户对Facebook公开辩论的态度，我们提出了一个问题：Facebook等社交媒体公司如何在平台上平衡各种人权考虑因素，特别是在表达自由方面？我们通过人权的角度分析了上述挑战，这是本文的分析框架。此外，我们根据联合国人权系统的最新建议，提出了一些前进的策略。