Industry Self-Regulation in the US and in the EU
This chapter analyzes the regulatory environment with implications for digital bullying with a specific focus on the United States (US) and the European Union (EU). Relevant regulatory stakeholders are explained as well as the process of self-regulation vs. traditional, command-and-control legislation and the benefits and downsides of each in the context of digital bullying. Self-regulation is distinguished from private regulation and corporate social responsibility (CSR) and literature that compares differences in self-regulatory traditions in the US and EU is examined, together with discussions on co-regulation. The term “alternative regulatory instruments” or ARIs (Lievens, 2010) is proposed and the author specifies how the terms “self-regulation” and “private regulation” are used in the book and subsequent chapters. It is argued that few companies examined in this book have been part of traditional self-regulatory initiatives but have rather adopted and developed policies via industry best practices. The issue of scarcity of independent evaluation, especially from children’s perspective, is raised, and how such a state of affairs reflects upon children’s rights.