News and Research articles on Freedom of expression

Government responses to online disinformation unpacked

Samuel Cipers, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Trisha Meyer, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Jonas Lefevere, University of Antwerp
PUBLISHED ON: 11 Dec 2023 DOI: 10.14763/2023.4.1736

This article provides a database of government responses to online disinformation and compares the amount and type of response over time and against the level of democratisation, press freedom, and gross domestic product.

To ban content that might possibly violate their own content policies, social media platforms use the term 'borderline‘. This means categorising content as potentially unwanted (e.g. harmful, inappropriate, etc) and sanctioning legitimate expressions of opinion - hence putting lawful speech in a twilight zone.

Since Twitter labelled a tweet by Donald Trump as ‘potentially misleading’ and indicated that it was fact-checking the statement made, the US President signed an ‘Executive Order'. Amélie Heldt finds that far from being new, the situation illustrates how torn we are when it comes to intermediary immunity or rather liability.

The regulation of online political micro-targeting in Europe

Tom Dobber, University of Amsterdam
Ronan Ó Fathaigh, University of Amsterdam
Frederik J. Zuiderveen Borgesius, Radboud University
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Dec 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1440

This paper discusses how online political micro-targeting is regulated in Europe, from the perspective of data protection law, freedom of expression, and political advertising rules.

Counter-terrorism in Ethiopia: manufacturing insecurity, monopolizing speech

Téwodros W. Workneh, Kent State University
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Mar 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.1.1394

Several countries have adopted counter terrorism legal frameworks in the past two decades. By framing the Ethiopian Anti-Terrorism Proclamation of 2009 as an extension of the ruling party’s neopatrimonial design, this article examines the law’s draconian effects on freedom of speech in Ethiopia’s digital sphere.

The countering of terrorism propaganda online, through private companies, may little by little kill our right to freedom of expression.

Internet freedom in Turkey: “It just keeps getting worse and worse”

Monika Ermert, Heise, Intellectual Property Watch, VDI-Nachrichten

PUBLISHED ON: 11 Sep 2014

When ‘governance’ started rhyming with ‘government’, Turkish activists thought, "it’s time to organise an alternative conference alongside the official UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF)". Read this interview with three organisers of the Internet Ungovernance Forum, which took place in Istanbul on 4-5 September 2014.

The so-called right to be forgotten needs to be discussed a little more. Google has received 70,000 requests for takedowns of search results since the decision of the European Court of Justice in May 2014. Now the company gets support from an unexpected place: a German constitutional judge warns against potential dangers of the decision.

The European Union’s Court of Justice has ruled against Google in a case in which a Spanish citizen, backed by his national data protection authority, wanted the company to remove search links to an old local newspaper story related to his bankruptcy. Jef Ausloos argues that implications should not be too extreme, but warns of the Court’s prioritising of data subjects over internet users. 

Online chilling effects in England and Wales

Judith Townend, University of Westminster & City University London
PUBLISHED ON: 3 Apr 2014 DOI: 10.14763/2014.2.252

Bloggers' and online journalists’ experiences of defamation and privacy law suggest that new approaches to legal policy are needed in a digital media environment. This paper by Judith Townend draws on empirical research to analyse chilling effects in the UK.