T. McGonagle

A Survey and Critical Analysis of Council of Europe Strategies for Countering "Hate Speech"

This chapter offers a very extensive examination of the Council of Europes diverse treaty-based and other standard-setting approaches against hate speech.

Fake News: False fears or real concerns?

“Fake news” has become a much-used and much-hyped term in the so-called “post-truth” era that we now live in. It is also much-maligned: it is often blamed for having a disruptive impact on the outcomes of elections and referenda and for skewing democratic public debate, with the 2016 US Presidential elections and Brexit referendum often cited as examples. “Fake news” has also been flagged for fuelling propaganda and “hate speech” and even violence. “Pizzagate” is an infamous example of exceptional circumstances in which a false news story had a central role in a shooting incident. In December 2016, a man in Washington D.C. took it upon himself to “self-investigate” a story (a completely unfounded conspiracy theory) that the Hillary Clinton campaign team was running a paedophile ring from the premises of a pizzeria. Shots were fired and he was arrested and charged with assault and related offences. Given all this bad press, it is perhaps little wonder that “fake news” has become a major preoccupation for international organisations, national law- and policy-makers, the media and media actors, civil society and academia. But what exactly is “fake news” and what is all the fuss about? In addressing these questions, this column will also consider historical and contemporary perspectives on the term and its relationship with human rights.

The development of freedom of expression and information within the UN: leaps and bounds or fits and starts?

This chapter tells the story of how the rights to freedom of expression and information have been shaped by the United Nations’ (UN) institutional dynamics over the years. It gives an account of how the growth of the rights to freedom of expression and information has been both stimulated and stymied by different factors in the particular institutional context of the UN. It traces the broad contours of the two rights by connecting the largest conceptual, normative, historical and institutional dots. The chapter opens with a brief exploration of the contiguous nature of the rights to freedom of expression and information. This necessarily involves reflection on the instrumental role that the media and new communications technologies can play in the realization of both rights in practice. The remainder of the chapter has an overtly institutional focus. Its next three substantive sections correspond to three broad - roughly chronological, but occasionally overlapping - phases in the development of freedom of expression and information at the UN. Each period is denoted by its key features or aspirations: trail-blazing, consolidation and expansion, and the quest for coherence and consistency. Various thematic challenges have presented themselves during these periods, a number of which are woven into the chapter’s narrative. Finally, after offering some substantive conclusions, the chapter will explain the objectives and structure of the book as a whole.