Journal of the Charles University Law Faculty
Harald Christian Scheu
Author’s affiliation:
Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague
Some reflections on the EU concept of disinformation
Jurisprudence 5/2023 Section: Articles Page: 1-10
Keywords: Disinformation, European Union, European Convention on Human Rights, Truthfulness, Public Harm
Abstract: This paper deals with the concept of disinformation in the light of historical experiences and with a special focus on documents of the European Union. As the specific elements of a definition of disinformation are rather unclear and leave significant space for interpretation, there is a risk of human rights violations, especially of the freedom of expression. As for the truthfulness of an information, the strict categorisation of certain content as true or false is a dangerous simplification of standard communication processes. The truthfulness of expressions should be viewed as a continuum rather than in terms of a simplistic binary model. We recommend to avoid the term disinformation in legal documents.
