Is the power of social network providers comparable to the omnipotence of the biblical God over paradise? Like God in the Garden of Eden, Facebook also enjoys dominion over the design of all the circumstances of this closed world and therewith a power of regulation with effects resembling setting standards for the inhabitants of its virtual empire. In his essay, the author picks up on this idea of polycentric code regulation by private providers and assesses whether these new structures of communication power can represent the impulse for a paradigm shift within the regulation of communications. In this process, the term "code" is introduced as a methodological tool in order to represent the options for operational management by providers within social networking services. This designates the circumstances created by soft- and hardware which, alongside further factors, subject users to online control. In terms of basic law dogma, the perspective is then focused above all on the paradigms of communication regulations to date so as then to be able to ask whether these do not need to change due to the changed structures in power brought about by normative technology.
