Browsing by Subject "Legal"

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    Open Access
    Do global legal frameworks hold social media platforms accountable for hosting content that incites violence?
    (2025) Rubenstein, Ruvenna Samantha; Lutchman, Salona
    The digital era has witnessed an unprecedented expansion in social media platforms' use, influence, and societal impact.1 Sixty percent of the global population uses social media, with the daily exchange of messages reaching into the billions.2 As of 2023, Facebook boasts 2.98 billion monthly active users,3 YouTube exceeds 2.68 billion users,4 and X (formerly Twitter) had 450 million users.5 These platforms offer users unrestricted capacity for expressing views and communication, often with minimal (though not constant) oversight while facilitating the concealment of user identities.6 While this technological advancement has opened new avenues for global connectivity and communication, it has also given rise to an alarming increase in the spread of hate speech.7 In the last twenty years, these online platforms have evolved into environments where hateful narratives and stereotypes flourish unchecked, primarily aimed at marginalized groups, leading to increased communal violence, ethnic cleansing, and even genocide.8 Major platforms such as Facebook, X, and YouTube have been criticized for failing to remove harmful content promptly and effectively and for mistakenly removing content that does not breach their policies.9 This research endeavours to comprehensively investigate the accountability of social media platforms in addressing and mitigating the impact of hate speech that fuels acts of violence within the public sphere. Legal, ethical, and technological perspectives will be considered to examine the responsibilities borne by social media platforms in moderating user-generated content. A detailed analysis of existing legal frameworks, both national and international, governing hate speech and its consequences will be conducted to evaluate whether social media platforms are held accountable for content that incites violence. A comparative analysis of diverse social media platforms will be integral to this research, considering variations in policies, enforcement mechanisms, and responsiveness to instances of hate speech inciting violence. Case studies will be examined to illustrate specific incidents, shedding light on the challenges faced by social media platforms and the repercussions of inadequately addressing hate speech. This research aims to determine the legal responsibilities and accountability of social media platforms for hosting content that incites violence and examines whether the current measures are sufficient in addressing this critical issue.
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    Open Access
    Some legal implications of web linking
    (1999) Roudi, Anuschka; Hofman, Julien
    The explosive expansion of the Internet during the recent years has provoked many lawsuits that left lawyers struggling with the application of traditional, "analogue" law to the new, digital technology. Yet, another pattern of disputes emerges that involves unauthorised Web linking in various forms. Technology meanwhile provides for the possibility to either incorporate images originating from another source on the Web into the own Web site or to frame content from other providers into the own material published on the Web simply by using hypertext links. These activities, along with more traditional kinds of links, have lead to disputes between content providers on the Internet about linking in general and specific kinds of links in particular. Four celebrated linking disputes, one in the Great Britain and three in the United States, gained interest in the cyber world because of their potential impact on the main feature of the Web, the possibility of linking documents. Thus far, only one court decision was issued in the Scotland, the other lawsuits were either settled or they are still pending. Notwithstanding. this uncertainty in law, similar situations have evolved and the demand for a solution is growing. Commentators around the world have tried to deal with the issue and it appears that in many jurisdictions traditional intellectual property law is difficult to apply to the new technology.