Exploring the Role of AI in Social Media Regulation: A Comparative Analysis of Selected South Asian Countries and the Actions of Major Technology Platforms

This article examines the extent to which private technology companies bear responsibility for respecting human rights, particularly freedom of expression, when governing social media content through artificial intelligence (AI), and how that responsibility relates to the legal obligations of States. It focuses on the rule-of-law complexities created by the interaction between territorially based public regulation and transnational platform governance. Through a comparative analysis of domestic law and platform practice, the article assesses how AI-mediated content moderation affects online expression. The revised analysis is limited to India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan as selected comparative cases; it distinguishes State duties from the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, and treats AI-mediated moderation as including automated detection, classification, recommendation, down-ranking, removal and account restrictions. It proposes a seven-element human-rights test for AI-mediated moderation: legality, legitimate aim, necessity, proportionality, transparency, procedural fairness and effective remedy.