The European Regulatory Conundrum to Face the Rise and Amplification of False Content Online
19(1) The Global Community Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence 319 (2020)
40 Pages Posted: 8 Nov 2020
Date Written: 2020
Abstract
In the last couple of years, the dissemination of false content online has raised serious concerns worldwide. As a result, states have attempted to tackle disinformation in different ways. Regulating disinformation requires solving the following dilemma: How and to what extent can we regulate (false) speech? It is not by chance that democratic and authoritarian countries have followed different regulatory paths in this field. The social media landscape has contributed to increasing the complexity in the fight against disinformation. The pandemic has then amplified the challenges coming from the spread of false content. This work aims to outline anti-disinformation trends in Europe. By focusing on Europe as one of the most interesting areas of the world to analyse regulatory attempts concerning disinformation, the primary goal of this work is to provide a nuanced approach in this field, going beyond the mere description of supranational and legislative regulation and looking at the European regulatory framework under a multilevel constitutional perspective.
Keywords: disinformation, European Union, democracy, freedom of expression, online platforms
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