Objective
Social media platforms have become important environments for public communication, political expression, social interaction, and economic activity. Their widespread use raises interconnected concerns about public rights, national sovereignty, privacy, cultural values, and security. In Iran, the constitutional recognition of legitimate freedoms, including freedom of expression, assembly, and occupational choice, coexists with the principle that exercising individual rights must not harm others or undermine public interests. Social media regulation must therefore address both the protection of freedoms and the prevention of practices that threaten collective rights. This challenge extends beyond controlling access to platforms and encompasses legislative arrangements, intellectual property, privacy protection, and mechanisms for resolving disputes between users. The study sought to develop an appropriate framework for regulating social media in Iran, particularly in the political domain. Its central question concerned how regulation could protect public rights without restricting legitimate freedoms. It also examined the causal conditions, intervening factors, contextual characteristics, strategies, and anticipated consequences associated with the proposed framework.
Research Methodology
The study adopted a qualitative grounded theory approach, drawing on interviews with 32 experts in communication studies, media, and information technology. Open coding generated 918 initial codes, which were subsequently refined and consolidated into concepts and categories. The analysis organized the findings around a central phenomenon and its relationships with causal conditions, intervening conditions, context, strategies, and consequences. “Desirable regulation” was identified as the central phenomenon. The resulting framework connected deficiencies in existing regulatory arrangements with the characteristics of cyberspace, relevant environmental influences, and strategies for improving governance. The proposed consequences represent outcomes anticipated within the framework rather than effects demonstrated through its implementation.
Findings
Desirable regulation was characterized by multistakeholder participation, engagement with international regulatory experience, adequate conceptual and infrastructural foundations, and political inclusiveness. The framework envisaged private-sector representation alongside government within regulatory institutions and reciprocal interaction between public authorities and actors operating in cyberspace. International experience, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, was identified as a relevant reference. Technical and legislative infrastructure, including the National Information Network and structural reforms, was considered necessary. The findings also emphasized preventing domination by a narrow political grouping and incorporating diverse political perspectives.
The causal conditions were grouped around neglected issues and their associated constraints on effective regulation. This included failure to learn from previous experience, declining public trust in government decisions, inconsistent and discretionary filtering, and the widespread identification of regulation with filtering. Institutional problems included conflicts of interest, unilateral decision-making, exclusion of other stakeholders, rapidly changing decisions, and structures dependent on individuals. Rebuilding trust between citizens and governing institutions consequently emerged as a fundamental requirement. Intervening conditions encompassed the immediate and wider environments. Cultural concerns associated with cyberspace, particularly messaging platforms, influenced regulatory approaches. Foreign platforms’ access to domestic big data raised security concerns, while exclusively security-oriented interpretations also shaped governance. In the wider environment, inadequate cyber diplomacy and insufficient engagement with foreign platforms and international institutions constrained regulatory options.
Cyberspace constituted the contextual setting of the framework. The findings emphasized understanding of it as an environment of public life rather than merely a new medium or a collection of existing services. Its rapidly evolving nature, the growing influence of public discourse, and the interdependence of online and offline governance required particular attention. The ideological influence of platforms and administrators also mattered. Furthermore, differences between user-oriented and content-oriented platforms called for differentiated governance approaches. An exclusively technical understanding was considered insufficient because it overlooked the human and social dimensions of digital life.
The overarching strategy combined multistakeholder governance, a spectrum of regulatory instruments, and appropriate infrastructure. Proposed instruments included allowing activities to continue unless violations occurred, exempting activities below specified thresholds of followers or views from licensing requirements, requiring explanatory messages at the beginning of media products, applying smart tariff-setting, and adopting dynamic regulation. These measures expanded the regulatory repertoire beyond filtering. Legislative proposals included decriminalizing the intermediary role of marketplaces or media, assigning responsibility for published content to its publisher rather than the platform, and strengthening laws governing data dissemination. The framework also incorporated infrastructure development, big-data governance, international engagement, cultural requirements, structural arrangements, and service-level strategies. Political and social diversity was to be reflected in both legislation and regulatory institutions.
Discussion & Conclusion
The proposed framework presents social media regulation as a multidimensional governance task requiring coordination between institutions, stakeholders, legal arrangements, and technological infrastructure. Its central implication is that protecting public rights requires attention to both legitimate freedoms and potential harm. Regulatory effectiveness therefore depends on a broader set of instruments, meaningful stakeholder involvement, institutional reform, and recognition of cyberspace as a human and social environment.
The anticipated overarching consequence is desirable governance in cyberspace. Expected outcomes include benefits in the human dimension, protection of domestic big data against external access, more judicious policymaking, reform of filtering policies, greater independence, cultural benefits, and stronger security protection. These outcomes remain contingent on how the proposed strategies interact with contextual and intervening conditions. The framework offers a context-sensitive basis for reconsidering social media regulation in Iran while identifying implementation priorities whose practical effectiveness requires further assessment.