Constitutionalising Social Media

by Edoardo Celeste

Author	: Edoardo Celeste
Publisher	: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages	: 319
Release	: 2022-06-30
Genre	: Law
ISBN	: 150995371X

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This book explores to what extent constitutional principles are put under strain in the social media environment, and how constitutional safeguards can be established for the actors and processes that govern this world: in other words, how to constitutionalise social media. Millions of individuals around the world use social media to exercise a broad range of fundamental rights. However, the governance of online platforms may pose significant threats to our constitutional guarantees. The chapters in this book bring together a multi-disciplinary group of experts from law, political science, and communication studies to examine the challenges of constitutionalising what today can be considered the modern public square. The book analyses the ways in which online platforms exercise a sovereign authority within their digital realms, and sheds light on the ambiguous relationship between social media platforms and state regulators. The chapters critically examine multiple methods of constitutionalising social media, arguing that the constitutional response to the global challenges generated by social media is necessarily plural and multilevel. All topics are presented in an accessible way, appealing to scholars and students in the fields of law, political science and communication studies. The book is an essential guide to understanding how to preserve constitutional safeguards in the social media environment.

The Content Governance Dilemma

by Edoardo Celeste

Author	: Edoardo Celeste
Publisher	: Springer Nature
Total Pages	: 153
Release	: 2023
Genre	: Internet governance
ISBN	: 3031329244

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This open access book is one of the first academic works to comprehensively analyse the dilemma concerning global content governance on social media. To date, no single human rights standard exists across all social media platforms, allowing private companies to set their own rules, values and parameters. On the one hand, this normative autonomy raises serious concerns, primarily around whether companies should be permitted to establish the rules governing free speech online. On the other hand, if social media platforms simply adopted international law standards, they would be compelled to operate a choice on which model to follow, and put in place mechanisms to uphold these general standards. This book examines this topic from a multidisciplinary perspective, drawing from the expertise of the authors in law, political science and communication studies. It provides a carefully reconstructed theory of the content governance dilemma, as well as pragmatic solutions for companies and policymakers. In this way, the book not only benefits academics by advancing the debate on content moderation issues, but also informs new policies and regulatory strategies by offering an up-to-date overview of rules and tools for content moderation, as well as an evaluation of their current level of compliance with standards emerged in international human rights law and digital constitutionalism initiatives. Edoardo Celeste is Assistant Professor of Law, Technology and Innovation and Director of the European Master in Law, Data and AI at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland. Nicola Palladino is a Research Fellow under the Human+ Co-Fund Marie Skodowska-Curie Programme at the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Dennis Redeker is a Postdoctoral Researcher at ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, University of Bremen, Germany. Kinfe Yilma is Assistant Professor of Law at the School of Law, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.

Digital Constitutionalism

by Edoardo Celeste

Author	: Edoardo Celeste
Publisher	: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages	: 256
Release	: 2022-10-13
Genre	: Law
ISBN	: 1000685217

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Investigating the impact of digital technology on contemporary constitutionalism, this book offers an overview of the transformations that are currently occurring at constitutional level, highlighting their link with ongoing societal changes. It reconstructs the multiple ways in which constitutional law is reacting to these challenges and explores the role of one original response to this phenomenon: the emergence of Internet bills of rights. Over the past few years, a significant number of Internet bills of rights have emerged around the world. These documents represent non-legally binding declarations promoted mostly by individuals and civil society groups that articulate rights and principles for the digital society. This book argues that these initiatives reflect a change in the constitutional ecosystem. The transformations prompted by the digital revolution in our society ferment under a vault of constitutional norms shaped for ‘analogue’ communities. Constitutional law struggles to address all the challenges of the digital environment. In this context, Internet bills of rights, by emerging outside traditional institutional processes, represent a unique response to suggest new constitutional solutions for the digital age. Explaining how constitutional law is reacting to the advent of the digital revolution and analysing the constitutional function of Internet Bills of Rights in this context, this book offers a global comparative investigation of the latest transformations that digital technology is generating in the constitutional ecosystem and highlights the plural and multilevel process that is contributing to shape constitutional norms for the Internet age.

Constitutionalisation of Private Law

by Thomas Barkhuysen

Author	: Thomas Barkhuysen
Publisher	: BRILL
Total Pages	: 145
Release	: 2006
Genre	: Law
ISBN	: 9004148523

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This publication aims at establishing a clear analysis of the nature and growth of the C-factor (C for constitutionalisation) in Germany, France, the UK and The Netherlands.

Digital Bouncers

by Berdien B. E. van der Donk

Author	: Berdien B. E. van der Donk
Publisher	: Kluwer Law International B.V.
Total Pages	: 389
Release	: 2024-08-27
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 9403528680

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Online content moderation is a well-known phenomenon. However, no consistent pattern exists on how it is done or how it is legally dealt with. This book addresses the complex issue of questionable content removals and account suspensions on social media platforms in the European Union, solving the existing legal ambiguity with a powerful roadmap designed to guide decision-makers in navigating online access rights and moderation issues. The roadmap’s elements are deduced from a technology-neutral comparative case law study of four Member States (Denmark, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands) based on rigorous selection criteria that highlight the most salient distinctions that characterise legal approaches to social media access and moderation. The ‘layers’ of the roadmap focus on such central issues as the following: the legal basis for social media platforms to impose restrictions; platform operators’ right to shape access, including limitations to the platform’s right to exclude users; the validity and enforceability of terms of service; and users’ and platforms’ remedies for breaches of the terms of service, including the procedural obligations in the Digital Services Act. Unlike previous work on the topic, this book does not focus on one field of law but touches upon and combines European law, constitutional and fundamental rights law, competition law, equality law, property law, and contract law, all reflected on and assessed through both a European and a national lens. By addressing these multifaceted legal aspects, it offers a holistic approach to resolving content moderation challenges and demonstrates which problems are most effectively addressed by which fields of law. The book’s roadmap can be used within the European Union to address and/or resolve any access and moderation problems on social media platforms. It will serve as a valuable resource for judges, social media platforms, and dispute resolution bodies, providing practical insights and guidance in navigating this complex landscape and streamlining decision-making processes. It will prove of immeasurable value in fostering a balanced and fair approach to content moderation in the EU that will ensure that all European users have equal opportunities for redress.

Data Protection Beyond Borders

by Federico Fabbrini

Author	: Federico Fabbrini
Publisher	: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages	: 260
Release	: 2021-02-11
Genre	: Law
ISBN	: 1509940685

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This timely book examines crucial developments in the field of privacy law, efforts by legal systems to impose their data protection standards beyond their borders and claims by states to assert sovereignty over data. By bringing together renowned international privacy experts from the EU and the US, the book provides an accurate analysis of key trends and prospects in the transatlantic context, including spaces of tensions and cooperation between the EU and the US in the field of data protection law. The chapters explore recent legal and policy developments both in the private and law enforcement sectors, including recent rulings by the Court of Justice of the EU dealing with Google and Facebook, recent legislative initiatives in the EU and the US such as the CLOUD Act and the e-evidence proposal, as well as ongoing efforts to strike a transatlantic deal in the field of data sharing. All of the topics are thoroughly examined and presented in an accessible way that will appeal to scholars in the fields of law, political science and international relations, as well as to a wider and non-specialist audience. The book is an essential guide to understanding contemporary challenges to data protection across the Atlantic.

Constitutionalizing Economic Globalization

by David Schneiderman

Author	: David Schneiderman
Publisher	: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages	: 60
Release	: 2008-03-27
Genre	: Law
ISBN	: 1139470094

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Are foreign investors the privileged citizens of a new constitutional order that guarantees rates of return on investment interests? Schneiderman explores the linkages between a new investment rules regime and state constitutions – between a constitution-like regime for the protection of foreign investment and the constitutional projects of national states. The investment rules regime, as in classical accounts of constitutionalism, considers democratically authorized state action as inherently suspect. Despite the myriad purposes served by constitutionalism, the investment rules regime aims solely to enforce limits, both inside and outside of national constitutional systems, beyond which citizen-driven politics will be disabled. Drawing on contemporary and historical case studies, the author argues that any transnational regime should encourage innovation, experimentation, and the capacity to imagine alternative futures for managing the relationship between politics and markets. These objectives have been best accomplished via democratic institutions operating at national, sub-national, and local levels.

Popular Sovereignty in a Digital Age

by Aaron Schneider

Author	: Aaron Schneider
Publisher	: State University of New York Press
Total Pages	: 399
Release	: 2024-08-01
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 1438498861

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In the evolution of global capitalism and geopolitics, digitalization presents a new and yet unresolved chapter. In the lead up to digitalization, neoliberalism weakened the welfare states of the global North and the developmental states of the global South where they existed. Neoliberalism also disorganized working classes, as Left parties and labor organization declined across the globe. Into this deregulated and unchecked context, digitalization proceeded, and technology companies inserted themselves into multiple sectors, making use of first mover advantage and monopolistic practices to drive out smaller and less advanced firms. We can now characterize a landscape in which states have been weakened, working classes disorganized, and rival firms greatly handicapped, allowing big tech to operate as all-powerful quasi-monopolies. They enjoy unprecedented concentration of wealth, power, and advantage. Worryingly, deregulated technology now penetrates many areas of life with surveillance and control, setting us on a path towards anti-democratic, neo-imperial, and exclusionary futures. Aaron Schneider offers a popular and sovereign alternative, with particular focus on labor and the global South.

Global Communication Governance at the Crossroads

by Claudia Padovani

Author	: Claudia Padovani
Publisher	: Springer Nature
Total Pages	: 436
Release	: 2024-01-24
Genre	: Social Science
ISBN	: 3031296168

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This edited volume addresses current challenges, trends and transformations in global communication governance. Exploring changes in the actors, issues, values and contexts of media and communications, it investigates the crossroads that media policy is facing and offers visions for the future. A diverse range of scholars and expert practitioners discuss what regulatory reforms and governing mechanisms are required to advance democratic participation and fundamental rights in platform societies. Organized around five sections, the volume considers the geopolitics of emerging communication orders; the changing roles of actors and stakeholders; the challenge of embedding rights and values in regulatory arrangements; the intersection of technology and policy; and the need to rethink epistemologies and methodologies for researching this field. Contributions from different disciplines and cultural backgrounds include provocative think pieces and longer analyses. All chapters are grounded in historically-aware understandings of contemporary transformations, while anticipating dynamics of our communication futures.