Shattock, Ethan (2023) Online Disinformation, Informed Democracy, and Human Rights: Identifying and Applying a European Human Rights Perspective to the Regulation of Online Disinformation with a Focus on the Political and Electoral Context. PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.

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Abstract

The spread of online disinformation in elections has become a widely debated problem in Europe. In response to this problem, European Union (EU) institutions and several EU Member States have developed legislation with a view to establishing responsibilities for technological intermediaries to limit the spread of false and misleading communications. Adopting a human rights perspective, this thesis develops a novel human rights framework and applies this framework to examine the extent to which specific EU and EU Member State legislation to combat online disinformation is compatible with the right to freedom of expression and the right to free elections as provided for under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFR). Limited academic scrutiny has been applied to how the regulation of online disinformation—including online disinformation which may not be illegal under EU or domestic European laws—could undermine the right to freedom of expression in Europe. However, there has been a dearth of in-depth academic inquiry on how the spread of online disinformation could undermine the right to free and fair elections under the European human rights legal framework. To address this gap, this thesis adopts a doctrinal methodology—and is guided by a human rights perspective—to identify the applicable standards on how the right to freedom of expression must be balanced alongside the right to free elections in the regulation of online disinformation in Europe. As part of its analysis, this thesis focuses on the applicable human rights standards that should inform the regulation of online disinformation which is disseminated in political and electoral contexts. Providing a distillation of these standards, this thesis draws extensively from the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). As will be demonstrated, the analysis conducted in this thesis has immediate policy relevance by providing and applying a timely analytical framework to examine how current EU and EU Member State legislation is compatible with the right to freedom of expression and the right to free elections as interpreted under the ECHR and CFR systems.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Keywords:	Online Disinformation; Informed Democracy; Human Rights; Identifying and Applying; European Human Rights Perspective; Regulation; Political and Electoral Context;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Law
Item ID:	18879
Depositing User:	IR eTheses
Date Deposited:	13 Sep 2024 13:39
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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