Philippe Jougleux of the School of Law at the European University Cyprus investigates the notion of freedom of speech in the context of European Union law in the International Journal of Electronic Governance.
He analyses the general legal regulation of online freedom of expression with reference to the three-part test and the specific case of hate speech. He also then shows how copyright law, as a case study, is related to the balancing of rights as applied by the courts with respect to the mechanism of blocking orders. Online freedom of expression is also considered in some detail.
Free speech is considered a critical part of democracy. Everyone is seen as being entitled to their opinion and their right to express it provided it does not break specific laws surrounding bigotry and incitement to violence and riot, for instance. Moreover, while everyone has the right to freedom of speech, their fellow citizens have the counterpart right to ignore those opinions. Jougleux considers the relatively novel and fragile concept of “neutrality” in this context.
In terms of what we might refer to as the online world, or digital realm, of social media, podcasts, and websites, the online intermediaries – the service and application (app) providers – are essentially protected by the freedom of expression only as a mean to an end. This means that their systems allow users within a democratic jurisdiction to be able to express their opinions and to receive information only insofar as that is not in breach of the law.
Jougleux, P. (2019) ‘Redefining freedom of speech in the digital environment from an EU law perspective’, Int. J. Electronic Governance, Vol. 11, Nos. 3/4, pp.401–417.