Internet Governance: American Legitimacy Perceptions and the Enforcement of Illegal Online Content

Internet governance is complex. When illegal content gets to social media platforms, governments must work through public-private partnerships in a 21st century style of community policing. However, research on public attitudes for these scenarios is limited. To understand how this enforcement relationship can best be fostered, an online survey experiment examining the illegal content enforcement context was conducted. The causal effect of four treatments on law enforcement legitimacy perceptions by American participants (n = 704) was examined. Only one hypothesis finds empirical support, with the other null results suggesting that variation in the enforcement context has no meaningful effect on perceptions of legitimacy. While not statistically significant at conventional levels, some estimates move in some predicted ways, which creates a basis for future legitimacy research.