Regulation in the Digital Information Space

As artificial intelligence (AI) tools and digital platforms become embedded in everyday communication, governments face growing pressure to regulate misinformation, hate speech, and other harmful online content while protecting freedom of expression. This study examines regulatory debates in Mongolia’s digital information space and argues that regulatory acceptance and legitimacy cannot be explained through an individual-centered perspective alone. It first organizes Mongolia’s digital governance challenges through four interrelated forms of uncertainty: cultural, ethical, institutional, and relational. This approach highlights Mongolia’s hybrid cultural environment, where collectivist traditions intersect with expanding individualism, and where public judgments about regulation are shaped by relationships and trust. Drawing on a quota-sampling survey of two hundred and seventy respondents from urban and rural Mongolia, the study employs Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and multi-group analysis to examine the direct, mediating, and moderating effects of four trust dimensions: strong-tie trust, weak-tie trust, institutional trust, and platform trust. The findings show that institutional trust is the strongest positive predictor of regulatory acceptance, followed by platform trust, strong-tie trust, and weak-tie trust. Relational trust statistically mediates the relationship between freedom-of-expression concerns and regulatory acceptance, suggesting that concerns about censorship are interpreted through broader trust environments. Urban-rural and generational differences further condition the effects of trust. The Mongolian case illustrates broader challenges faced by small democracies and platform-dependent societies, where domestic regulatory capacity remains limited while global platforms shape the public sphere. The study demonstrates the need to understand regulatory legitimacy through relationships, trust, and cultural context, not solely legal systems or individual literacy alone.