The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Social media allowed us to connect with one another like never before. But it came with a price – it handed a megaphone to everyone, including terrorists, child abusers and hate groups. EU institutions recently reached agreement on the Digital Services Act (DSA), which aims to “make sure that what is illegal offline is dealt with as illegal online”. Continue reading
Shortly after the Russian military invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the European Union announced a series of sanctions to hit the Putin regime. One of these measures is the blocking in the EU of the Russian state media RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik (link). Also the transmission or facilitation of the programmes or content of RT and Sputnik is banned, while the ban also affects journalistic reporting by European media outlets. Continue reading
The decision by Western powers to fight the war in Ukraine through swingeing sanctions regimes is widely regarded as a hugely powerful demonstration of the West’s unified commitment to the championing of liberal democratic values, in the face of an amoral totalitarian aggressor. However, an important question which falls to be answered is whether those regimes may ironically also pose a threat to the very values they are seeking to defend, particularly insofar as they operate so as to curb media and online freedoms; free expression of course being one of the cornerstones of any liberal democracy. Continue reading
Non-consensual pornography, commonly referred to as image-based sexual abuse, is easily and freely available on pornography websites. Yet, to date, responses to this problem have been partial and fragmented. There is the possibility that this situation will change. Proposals to impose obligations on pornography sites to reduce the extent of this unlawful material have been inserted into the European Parliament’s negotiating position on the Digital Services Act (DSA) as Article 24b. Continue reading
This is my selection of the top data breach fines in the EU and the United Kingdom in 2021, many of which have featured in our Law and Media Round Ups over the past year. Continue reading
Facebook’s approach to users’ data has just been dealt a major blow from the European court of justice (ECJ). In an answer to a question from Germany’s highest court, the ECJ’s advocate general – whose opinion is not binding but is generally followed by the court – has made an essential clarification to Europe’s data protection law to confirm that consumer associations can bring actions on behalf of individuals. Continue reading
On 25 November 2021, the European Commission has published its comprehensive legislative proposal package to reinforce democracy and protect the integrity of elections. The package comprises a new draft proposal on a new regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising and three amendment proposals: one of those on European political parties and two on electoral rights of EU citizens. The package had been prescheduled by the European Democracy Action Plan (2.1. and 2.2.) for year 2021. Continue reading
On Wednesday 28 April and Thursday 29 April 2021, the UK Supreme Court will hear Lloyd v Google LLC, a hotly anticipated appeal which could see the rebirth of the CPR 19.6 representative claim vehicle for opt-out data privacy ‘class actions’. Continue reading
The EU looks set to ban some of the most concerning forms of artificial intelligence (AI), such as the “social credit” surveillance system used in China, according to draft AI regulations published by the bloc. Continue reading
While Article 30 of the European Union Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter ‘GDPR’) is often talked about for its obligations of keeping records of processing, not much attention is paid to the exemption it provides to small organizations. The provision provides an exemption from record-keeping obligations under GDPR to organizations having an employee strength of less than 250. Continue reading
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