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The impact of digital platforms and social media on freedom of expression and pluralism – the viewpoints of young scientists
29/04/2021 17:05
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Event report available
The conference titled ‘The impact of digital platforms and social media on freedom of expression and pluralism – the viewpoints of young scientists’ is organised as part of Central European Professors’ Network 2021 coordinated by the Ferenc Mádl Institute of Comparative Law.
The Professors’ Network, with the active participation of experts from seven different countries (i.e. Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia), organises events with the primary aim to draw attention of the European citizens to the topics which are important and significant in connection with the future of Europe, in particular of Central Europe.
The issue of digitalisation and addressing its possible disadvantages from a legal viewpoint are crucial for Europe in the 21st century. The main aim of this event is to enable young researchers to present their research results. The conference is organised as a dissemination event of Bartłomiej Oręziak (the member of the research group titled The Impact of Digital Platforms and Social Media on Freedom of Expression and Pluralism).At the conference there will be two key issues: (a) analysis of the influence of fake news on the internet with regard to the freedom of expression and pluralism of opinions;
(b) analysis of the influence of censorship on the internet with regard to the freedom of expression and pluralism of opinions.
Speakers at the conference will be young researchers from various countries.
(b) analysis of the influence of censorship on the internet with regard to the freedom of expression and pluralism of opinions.
Speakers at the conference will be young researchers from various countries.
Event report
The thought-provoking presentations at this very fruitful conference were examining the different aspects of expression and pluralism in digital platforms. The speakers agreed that the censorship and the occurrence of fake news on digital platforms are negatively influencing both the constitutional rights and freedoms and the social discourse as well, not only in the Central-European region but all over the world. The issue is very trending because social media has become the most important platform for online discourse. Numerous presentations pointed out, that is absolutely not easy to answer the question: what censorship is? Most probably, censorship is like some kind of official control of the flow of information or some kind of ex-post verification of user-uploaded content. One thing is for sure: in the analyzed countries the censorship is strictly prohibited, and freedom of expression is protected on a constitutional level. During the conference, it was also emphasized, that freedom of speech and hate speech are closely connected to each other, that’s why social media platforms can be a source of committing crimes. In order to save the basic principles of our democratic society, legal measures should be taken. A number of other legal issues were also raised at the conference: copyright issues, the rise of AI (artificial intelligence), the problematic situations arising from the existence of deepfake videos, the ways of content moderation, and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Some of the presenters told the audience about the relevant case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union too. It is clear, that in order to protect the constitutional rights and freedoms and the social discourse along with protecting the plurality of the society, legislative measures should be taken. A paper about the Facebook Oversight Board and the case study of the Zwarte Piet highlighted the fact, that the regulation or self-regulation of a platform cannot be effective if it does not take into account local constitutional traditions, a global decision on content simply cannot be made in case of content which is targeted to a local market. The very trending presentations highlighted, that a legal framework should be established in order to protect the fundamental rights and the freedom of speech, but it seems, that this regulation must be carried out on the regional level, taking into account the local constitutional traditions.
01
June 2021
10:00 - 15:00
Reference: cofe-MEET-2021-04-340
Version number 5 (of 5) see other versions
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