Power and Authority in Internet Governance: Return of the State? by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781000361568
Goodreads: 55561342
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

The regulatory vacuum regarding online health content

The number of internet users in China more than doubled between 2009 and 2018, rising from 338 million to 829 million (CNNIC 2009, 2018). One distinctive feature of the internet, particularly as it relates to social media, is the prevalence of user-generated content. Such content tends to be published on online platforms owned and managed by private companies. The sheer amount of online content produced every day and the decentralised nature of online content production poses a great challenge for those agencies and countries wishing to regulate and manage online content, one not unique to China (see, for example, Mintzes 2016). For its part, because of its potential to have real effects on people’s health and wellbeing, online health information is a special area of online content that requires professional knowledge in order to be useful (and not harmful).

As was previously noted, China’s initial approach to regulating the internet involved treating it as just another form of mass media. However, these institutional structures and the fragmentation that characterised internet governance proved unable to deal with the peculiarities related to the massive decentralised production of online health content, and in particular the fake online medical content that culminated in 2016 with two major health scandals, in which the management and moderation rights of some medical sub-forums were sold to commercial companies. Subsequently a student died after receiving experimental treatments proven to have failed clinical trials in the United States that he learned of from a promoted result on Baidu search.

In the run-up to the 2016 health scandals, fragmentation had created a regulatory vacuum as it related to online medical content. While the CAC has a clear mandate and priority on online content in sensitive areas, no one was directly responsible for regulating medical content which is not sensitive in this fragmented system.

Effective regulation of online medical content in China would involve engaging the knowledge and expertise of many different authorities. First, because online medical content is related to health care and medical services and requires professional medical knowledge, it always falls under the purview of the Ministry of Health, which is the policymaker and regulator of medical services and health care in China.6

Second, medical content is published on online platforms owned and managed by commercial companies and thus touches upon the commercial activities of technology companies. What’s more, because online medical content can affect consumer choices regarding medical services, it brings consumer interests and rights into play. As a consequence of both of these aspects of online medical information, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce at the bureau level, responsible for regulating business activities and consumer protection, would also have the authority and expertise to regulate this content.7

Third, because producing online medical content is a commercial activity of internet companies, it also falls under the purview of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, responsible for monitoring the daily operation of the internet industry. All three aforementioned departments are within the State Council system.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.