The law exists to keep everything in order and balanced. Be it social, economic, political or societal means, these systems of rules implemented to a specific nation are compulsory to which society accepts as governing the conduct of its members and that it can enforce by the application of penalties. The simplest explanation would be committing an act of murder is illegal to every parts of the world, expecting a heavy punishment decided by the court of justice. One who dares to question how the law works would also be possibly penalized if it involves disrespect, or other words would be contempt.
Social media are no exception to these types of law, digital laws specifically. Social media law is an emerging field of law that encompasses both criminal and civil elements. In general, it addresses legal concerns concerning user-generated content and the websites that host or distribute it. Privacy, including the rights of both social media users and third parties, is one of the unique legal issues posed by social media. As much freedom as we have when it comes to using our social media, they still have limitations to obey to. Luckily there is no particular penalty for buying insta likes – goread.io for you to get higher engagement on your social media like Instagram.
For the safety of society and their mental welfare, here are the laws of social media in Europe you should know about and may be applied to your country as well:
Freedom Of Speech
Indeed, every owner of any form of social media does have the right to have freedom of speech, but even freedom has its boundaries. Nonetheless, there are attempts to govern the online world through laws rather than solely through platform guidelines. While providing the liberty to word out opinions and statements, it is worth mentioning that all digital platforms must protect freedom of speech and fundamental rights while avoiding censorship. Moreover, it is not plausible to sweep the universe with fear and agitation, especially with the recent issues on racism and police brutality. With these rising cases going on and about, The EU must safeguard open and democratic debate on social media.
Misinformation And Hate Speech
Technology is so highly advanced that information is quick to spread through the entire horizon of the globe. However, errors can occur in the middle of it where the irresponsible party will possibly misinterpret the actual story and propagate a twist and turn of the true version, causing an unnecessary riot against the people who are involved. Recently, there has been a lot of fabrications about the COVID-19 pandemic, which has undoubtedly instilled insecurity within the confinements of everyone’s home. Thus, current measures were taken to reduce the escalation of such cases like hate speech or any other controversial preaches, to the point where it emphasizes the importance of explicit rules for internet behemoths, whose policies have an effect on the real world and seem to be the ones determining which messages are appropriate or not. Decisions on what will be released in the digital world should not be based on network guidelines, but on a law that sets out specific procedures and regulations.
Extremists And Other Terror-Related Content
A new legislation will be enacted that will require social media outlets to delete extremists or other terror-related content from their platforms in less than 60 minutes, otherwise they must face fines. With recent frights the world has endured via social media, the users’ constant apprehensions shared in their tweets on Twitter or Instagram explained how and with what lengths terrorists use social media sites, and even the biggest platforms like Facebook and Youtube are no exception for these terrorists to circulate their threats. These new guidelines will help increase content removal performance and will apply to all websites, regardless of size or number of users.
The existence of social media is an amazing privilege everyone can benefit from on their smartphones. However, it comes as a price to be exposed to the ugliness of the world outside and the toxicity inside the platform, which does not really have a farfetched personality of the real world. Of course, coming up with these laws is never an easy task as proven from the capability of the digital realm to spread information that can beat the speed of the light. Because of differences in size and resources, the abilities of these media platforms to act against terrorism and wrong content varies, and their policies for doing so are not always clear. As a result, such material continues to circulate across the internet, reappearing after being removed and spreading from platform to platform. The pressure is on, and social networks will have to work harder than ever to achieve a shared goal.
