ABSTRACT
The new legal strata where executives new to law can be held personally liable for the illegal content posted by their users on their platforms. Until now, global legal regimes shielded the tech CEOs. The US has its Section 230 of US Communications Decency Act and EU has e-Commerce Directive. With the arrests of the Twitter India heads and Binance founder for misconduct, we see a clear escalation in regulatory response with national authorities going where governments had given a ‘safe harbor’ to tech giants. The unprecedented acts and search warrants against the platforms to forcibly shut Danal and Telegram accounts by the Dutch police marking the ban of an entire country’s scale is yet another advancement in this trend.
Technological negligence and failure to cooperate are to be considered, as it would be rare to see multiple instances of intentional evasion. With cross-border data transfer on the rise, neoliberal justice and the erosion of privacy will be at stake. The paper also proposes an appropriate normative framework to govern such corporate veil piercing and to balance digital freedom, public safety and political expression without risking a chilling effect on our global digital communication.
KEYWORDS: Global Law Regimes, Section 230 of US Communications Decency Act, e-Commerce Directive, Regulatory Response, Safe Harbour, neo-Liberal Justice, Corporate Veil
INTRODUCTION
The internet services evolve as fast pace technology that serves to communicate across the world through different platforms. A tool to express one’s views, feelings and ideas to integrate knowledge and awareness about a specific subject through group-based chats, a community-based platforms providing end to end encrypted data. Individuals upon exercising its own ability to post comments, data, figures and hate speeches directly affects Tech platforms credibility to protect individuals from potential threats. In contemporaneous world, the tech executives, heads and owners have been held liable and blamed for the actions of the user’s post.
The history repeats itself placing a great pressure and burden on Tech platforms or its owners to be held liable for hate speech. Around 2020 and 2021, the founder of Binance has been guilty of fraud and money laundering violates the crypto rules and twitter heads in India faced a significant unrest over posts that violated the operational norms and not removed it from the site.
For years, rarely the companies’ owners have been called out for the actions that took place on their platforms. On Pavel Durov’s arrest, the telegram stated that its operations abide by EU rules and regulations and aims to protect from illegal online harm. International human rights law, which demands a “high threshold of legality, legitimacy, necessity, and proportionality” when restricting people’s ability to express their political opinions, even if they are incorrect, provides especially strong protection for political expression.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The paper is based solely on secondary data. It integrates textual, judicial and statistical evidence to provide a complete picture of the current regulatory environment. This study uses a qualitative mixed-method research methodology to investigate the topic of technology platform CEOs’ criminal prosecution and legal accountability. It necessitates a more thorough analysis of how laws are really applied, the impact of geopolitical tensions and power structures, and how actions made by digital firms affect the lives and rights of common people. This strategy includes variety of qualitative techniques to bridge the gap between abstract legal theory and the concrete, human repercussions of governmental actions.
DATA COLLECTION
Three particular research techniques that offer historical depth and real-world context form the foundation of the data collection framework:
Case Studies: Two current, well-known legal cases are thoroughly examined in this research. A billionaire, the largest leader of communications and messaging tool telegram has been arrested for violating the law enforcement norms and detained for the violation of the French criminal laws; probe into investigation for the illegal acts of content related child sexual abuse imagery. The second is the Brazilian Supreme Court’s ruling to prevent access to Elon Musk’s platform, X, after a dispute over the removal of political accounts and the appointment of a local representative.
Observations: Specifically, it keeps an eye on how digital corporations react when state enforcement shifts its focus from corporate fines to risks to individual safety, like when companies actively transfer personnel from countries to avoid their imprisonment.
Secondary Data Analysis: The study examines published documents, such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) of the European Union, safety codes from the United Kingdom, the Information Technology Act of India, and conventional US protection laws like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, in order to link these incidents to larger legal frameworks.
Data Analysis: The collected textual data is analyzed using content and topic analysis to identify patterns in how states demonstrate criminal intent (mens rea) and how platforms react. This paper investigates the legal defenses given in the two key case studies. The study determines whether Durov is charged with intentionally inciting illegal activity on Telegram or with failing to regulate content appropriately. The Brazilian investigation of X examines the platform’s refusal to deactivate accounts allegedly propagating false information about the election.
This study cross-references all case narratives with multiple independent legal databases and human rights indexes to guarantee accuracy and reduce bias. As a result, the methodology is based on the ethical principle that people in positions of coercive state power must ensure that the laws they enforce and how they are carried out completely comply with international human rights norms.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
One challenge for prosecutors and law enforcement agencies is proving that an executive was aware of illegal activity on their platforms and took no action to prevent the harm, according to Daphne Keller, a professor of internet law at Stanford University Law School[1].
Because TikTok, YouTube, Snap, and Meta have made an attempt to keep unlawful content out of the hands of law authorities, it is difficult to demonstrate that their leaders were acting morally. “Knowledge is the key issue here,” said Ms. Keller, a former Google lawyer[2].
“Anyone losing immunity is typically triggered by it. “But according to Bruce Daisley, a vice president at Twitter before Elon Musk bought the business in 2022, the prospect of legal action is required to force digital firms to act.[3]
Scholars like Hartzog contended that tech companies shouldn’t be given a “blank check” to develop dangerous or discriminatory services without any legal accountability. Data sorting and algorithmic amplification power today’s internet[4].
Some experts share this concern, pointing out that Supreme Court justices typically lack the in-depth technical understanding and believes that Congress should have complete control over internet legislation[5].
The courts are well able to understand contemporary systems and protect human rights while maintaining the rule of law because society has been utilizing the internet for decades[6].
METHOD
Historical Background
The incidents in western democracies of arrest of Telegram’s CEO in France[7], a high-profile escalation between a Binance executive & the Nigerian government, and the US Congress’ harsh questioning of Mark Zuckerberg a worldwide trend to target such individuals over the user post or actions by any individual using the platform. Many critics said that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s publicly out broadcast interrogation[8] appears to be a trigger point a full-fledged confrontation with the tech elites. This change represents a major change in the way governments handle corporate responsibility. For many years, tech executives faced public hearings, political criticism, and financial consequences if something went wrong, much like other business executives.
Limited Liability arise of Tech Platform Owners
The protection of individual privacy is one of the main justifications for this limited responsibility[9]. When a nation requires platforms to constantly monitor every post or message in order to prevent lawsuits, it violates the right to private speech. Historically favoured safe harbour principle reduce the liability of digital platform as the companies are the pipelines the way the information is circulated and accessed by several other individuals not the actual publishers of user’s content. Laws like those in the European Union, which forbid platforms from tracking a lot of user metadata to prevent mass surveillance, support this technical limit.
Absolute Liability of Tech Executives in Modern World
When platforms like X went so far as to deplatform a sitting US president for disseminating election misinformation, this change became evident. The attempt to hold a founder, principal owner, and chief executive officer personally liable for crimes committed by normal app users under national penal laws is a major breakthrough in tech policy, shocked the legal community just a year after the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU’s flagship content control law, went into force.
Earlier there were corporate responsibilities according to which companies were held liable but nowadays its humiliating for big cheer leaders that has emerged powerful in emerging building their platform for free speech and stand out with rules that protects from online illegal activities of interacting with people across the globe but that has turned now to be held criminally responsible for the hate speech exchanges that’s happening on their platform.
Telegram and several other platforms like WhatsApp, Meta and many others have faced regulatory compliance mechanisms failed to comply with norms of safety and has erroneously failed to define a transparent procedure and laying down structural moderation policies. Telegram has been accused of violating online data privacy and services measures that helps to safeguards and protect users from potential threats and harm.
Lot of censored content has been spread across and misinformation creates a harmful environment for the users and that content should instantly been removed from the site and calls for accountable mechanism to deal with dangerous content.
Moderation versus Data Privacy
A careful evaluation of this argument reveals that much more than content control is at risk. According to investigative records, state authorities are prioritizing private, peer-to-peer exchanges and targeting factors other than public channels. This has deeply troubled digital rights organizations, which warn that while platforms must follow local laws, governments should not use high-profile criminal cases as an excuse to compromise encryption protocols or listen in on millions of law-abiding citizens’ private communications[10].
Technology watchdogs claim that the website has insufficient human rights due diligence teams, unclear, open moderating standards, and inaccessible remedies for abuse victims. It is quite unlikely that the program will fully adhere with requirements like the DSA due to these issues.
Challenges faced because of User Generated Content
The fast growth of user-generated information has created a complex web of legal duties that traditional laws struggle to manage. In everyday online arenas, users frequently cross the line into actual civil and criminal offenses. When nasty statements spread uncontrolled on platforms like as X, defamation and serious reputational damage are widespread, often leading to complicated civil action. This is a long-standing problem that can be traced to early legal cases against peer-to-peer file-sharing services such as Napster.
Existing Frameworks that prevent misuse of online services
1. Digital Services Act
The Digital Services Act[11] (DSA) is a significant change in the way the internet is governed within the European Union, replacing the older 2000 e-Commerce Directive. This is uniform legislation applicable in European union and serves as standard measure to follow and abide by other digital platforms and regulates the relationships of marketplaces with online digital services and connection consumers across the services of digital word including their protection from harmful content.
These are basically the obligations to fulfill as an intermediary to prevent illegal activity, measures to be counter the illegal service on online platform and measures to take out red flaggers disrupting the system. A new way of response to this type of crisis caused by hijackers who control the website and build trust in community to catch those scammers and protect minors on any visible platforms.
Serves as a new settlement mechanism that imposes duty on every platform to include the services comprising of seek out of court settlement, focus on bans of dark patterns used by digital platforms interface, right to complain to platform in suspicious circumstances. The European Centre for Algorithm Transparency serves as a largest safeguard and primary regulator for very large and highly technological platforms, databases and websites.
It covers the process of catching the scammer i.e. flagging a person for wrongdoing of any acts related to provocative content, hate speech and breaching the rules to post the content without follow up. Next step is to detect the harmful content and remove it from the site. Harmful content includes child pornographic images; child sexual exploitation activities displayed over a video or child sexual abuse material.
Citizens welfare from New Rules
By providing better services to consumers through online trade and services in online marketplaces. Identify the services produced or keep a random check on selling of products that the person selling is the owner or trader getting to know about useless traders and dangerous users placing a self-trusted seller in the market to catch those by making transparent procedure and ensuring trust and credibility on the sellers by eliminating the non-experts with aim of spreading illegal product over marketplaces.
Promoting transparency and accountability by platforms taking any informed decision of any reported harm or content exploited or any suspicious activity reported and promoted ads should not objectify about minors or sexual abuse material or harmful content over specific subjects such as ethnicity and religion.
2. Section 230 of Communication Decency Acts 1996
It is the most controversial law; however, law has not adapted to modern challenges and now causes considerable concern among courts and lawmakers. Under this section the immunity has been given to those online entities whose content is generated and authored by third parties. Over the last twenty years its implications have become very successful for the online platforms and smartphone apps whose content is generated third party and has been escaped from any legal liability. That ear called for the voice of speakers, publishers and creators in 1996[12] for the communication done through magazine, newspapers and print media.
Defamation law another recourse
Over the years, the only way to cause harm online was placing false accusation on another individual’s personal reputation and causes personal harm. The primary means of making false statements that also harms the reputation of business of others. This law has been served a long-protected shield and to sue and recover for the said defamatory statement to the person itself and the third persons liabilities. It is recourse available to the person who has been wronged by other person’s wrongful conduct.
It started to impose on obscene material or child pornographic content and material over the unrestricted access to such videos on online platform thereby imposing an unlawful entity to deliver such content of obscene materials to minors should be punished. Therefore, with change in time and growing challenges of provided more content available on digital websites, Congress led by Senators starting drafting the and placing limited access of indecent material made available to minors. The law protected excessively violent and filthy content by promoting decency material in compliance with CDA’s major goal by internet companies. With Digital surveillance by internet the platforms’ ability to host massive data flowing through their systems by providing no liability for the content posted by third party,
A year and a half later, in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, the Supreme Court ruled that the majority of the CDA’s prosecution of indecent content violated the First Amendment. Section 230 and its crucial twenty-six words were practically all that survived from the four-thousand-word CDA, Section 230, for all its success, is showing its age. Internet content creators, not passive internet service providers or users, are responsible for any wrongdoing.
The Stratton Oakmont[13] ruling in Favor of Cubby and the pre-internet restrictions on distributor and conduit liability are both rejected by Section 230. Because only “information content providers” are subject to liability for their content, Section 230 shields internet users from liability. Section 230 makes the false assumption that the internet is only used for publishing. E-commerce started to expand as Congress debated Section 230.
The problem of coordinated action by online organizations and their members is addressed by the Section 230 internet-immunity hypothesis. The plaintiffs said that Backpage.com helped sex traffickers hide their operations while collecting a portion of their earnings
SUGGESTIONS
To enhance the relationship between privacy and law enforcement requirements that shapes the norms across the world there are few suggestions to track down the spreading of misinformation over internet service providers:
i) Platforms are required to follow certain protocols in order to remove illicit products. Additionally, online marketplaces are asked to “know your business customer” by tracking down their vendors. Customers are guaranteed a secure, transparent, and reliable environment, while dealers who misuse platforms are deterred from selling dangerous or fake items.
ii) The members of the privacy committee will be chosen by an independent nomination committee; they must be independent. Members of the Facebook board of directors can only be fired by a supermajority of the board. The order also improves personal responsibility
iii) The CEO and employees of Facebook will not be able to terminate these compliance professionals; only the new board privacy committee will. The FTC must get quarterly certificates from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a few compliance officers attesting to the company’s compliance with the order’s mandatory privacy program.
iv) Children’s interactions with the internet have drastically changed since new rules under the Online Safety Act went into force to protect minors from harmful online content they shouldn’t ever be accessing. Because of this, it will be much harder for minors to intentionally or unintentionally access harmful content.
v) Facebook’s order-mandated privacy program includes Instagram and WhatsApp. The CEO, the independent assessor, and the FTC must receive a quarterly privacy review report from the approved compliance officers upon agency request. Prior to implementation, any new or modified products, services, or activities must undergo a privacy audit. Facebook’s privacy settings must also be documented. Within 30 days of learning that the data of 500 or more users has been compromised, Facebook is required under the order to submit documentation to the Commission and the assessor. These documents have to detail the problem and Facebook’s attempts to fix it.
CONCLUSION
If Section 230 hadn’t been in place, the internet as we know it today would not have been possible. However, the current state of the internet is not all positive. We might be able to have an improved internet with fewer safeguards for tech firms.
Conservatives want to restrict social media’s ability to silence individual users because they feel that it is restricting conservative ideas. Liberals want to promote or even compel social media to ban hate speech, false information, and fake news.
The internet has been a part of our lives for a while now. It is absurd to think that justices are not qualified to decide cases involving technology. The Act does not compel platforms to age gate any content other than that which poses the greatest risk to children, such as pornography or content about suicide and self-harm.
Dhriti Sachdeva – SRM University Delhi NCR, Sonepat
[1] Daphne Keller – Stanford CIS, https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/about/people/daphne-keller/ (last visited Jun 20, 2026).
One challenge for prosecutors and law enforcement agencies is proving that an executive was aware of illegal activity on their platforms and took no action to prevent the harm, according to Daphne Keller, a professor of internet law at Stanford University Law School.
[2] Meta faces U.S. lawmaker scrutiny over removal of lawyer ads for social media addiction cases, The Hindu, May 4, 2026, https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/meta-faces-us-lawmaker-scrutiny-over-removal-of-lawyer-ads-for-social-media-addiction-cases/article70937171.ece (last visited Jun 21, 2026).
[3] Twitter loses legal immunity in India over non-compliance with IT rules, The Print, June 16, 2021, https://theprint.in/india/twitter-loses-legal-immunity-in-india-over-non-compliance-with-it-rules/678795/ (last visited Jun 21, 2026).
[4] Alexander Trauth Goik, Addressing cyber harm in the age of Platform Power: Comparative insights into legal, technical and educational responses, 13 Peking University Law Journal 145–164 (2025), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20517483.2026.2618383#abstract (last visited Jun 21, 2026).
[5] Brannon et al., Section 230: An Overview (Version 8) (2024), https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46751 (last visited Jun 21, 2026).
[6] Alan Z Rozenshtein, Interpreting the Ambiguities of Section 230, 41 Yale Journal on Regulation Bulletin 3–25 (2024), https://www.yalejreg.com/wp-content/uploads/Rozenshtein.Bulletin.pdf (last visited Jun 22, 2026).
[7] Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat, Tech CEOs Are Not Above the Law – But Human Rights Should Inform How They Are Held Accountable (2024).
[8] 1 October 10, 2016 Facebook, Inc. 1 hacker way Menlo Park, CA 94025, https://www.aclunorcal.org/sites/default/files/20161010_ACLU_CMJ_Color_of_Change_Joint_letter_Facebook_Instagram.pdf (last visited Jun 22, 2026).
[9] Arrest of Telegram CEO- Liability of Digital Platform Owners for User-generated content- Explained Pointwise, (2024), https://forumias.com/blog/arrest-of-telegram-ceo-liability-of-digital-platform-owners-for-user-generated-content-explained-pointwise/ (last visited Jun 22, 2026).
[10] Adam Satarian & Cecilia Kang, Can Tech Executives Be Held Responsible for What Happens on Their Platforms? August 28, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/technology/durov-telegram-liability-platforms.html (last visited Jun 22, 2026).
[11] Questions and answers on the Digital Services Act, (2024), https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_20_2348 (last visited Jun 22, 2026).
[12] Communications Decency Act of 1996, Pub. L. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56, tit. V (1996) (relevant provisions codified at 47 U.S.C. § 230). This Article draws from and synthesizes much of my previous work on Section 230 internet immunity doctrine. See generally Gregory M. Dickinson, The Internet Immunity Escape Hatch, 47 BYU L. REV. 1435 (2022); Toward Textual Internet Immunity, 33 STAN. L. & POL’Y REV. ONLINE 1 (2022); Rebooting Internet Immunity, 89 GEO.WASH. L. REV. 347 (2021); Note, An Interpretive Framework for Narrower Immunity Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 33 HARV. J.L.& PUB. POL’Y 863 (2010)
[13] H.R. 1978, 104th Cong. (1995)