DAES

Language:

Italian
Textbooks:

G. Gardini, Le regole dell’informazione
Pluralismo e libertà nell’era dell’intelligenza artificiale, Giappichelli, 2024
Learning objectives:

This course provides students with the methodological skills necessary to understand and critically analyse information and media law. The focus is on developing and using new technologies and digital ecosystems within the frame of constitutional principles on freedom of information and information.
The course takes on the legal issues arising from the swift and radical change of ICT diffusion, fruition, and users’ typology. The Big Data Analytics revolution is rooted in a massive collection of information and is primarily a cultural breakout: reality is moulded into data through information circulating via interconnected devices, present both outside and inside one’s abode (Internet of Things). This translation of reality into massive data fluxes makes statistical correlations once inconceivable between facts. Forecasting events and making decisions regarding policies, courses of action, and individual situations occur using deterministic or non-deterministic algorithms.
The course aims to teach students principles, regulations, techniques, and policies carried out at the European level according to a proactive approach, which distinguishes it from that which dominates globally (US and China).
The European Union has created a complex and articulated legal framework that includes data protection, AI, digital services and markets, and media freedom.
This regulatory effort core lays in the Communication by the EU Commission entitled “Shaping European Digital Future”, which heralds the intent to adopt rules as uniform as possible across Europe concerning the digital ecosystem. The aim is to expand their reach and the democratic values they embody beyond European borders. The ultimate issue concerns the ability of political institutions and the law to preserve social models rooted in liberal democracies vis-à-vis the huge power of influence exerted by the so-called Big Tech, a handful of giant tech companies whose expansion in the global arena is apparently unstoppable.
Prerequisite:

Some familiarity with public law is advisable
Teaching methods:

Self-learning and assessment by using the Moodle platform complement teaching in class. Class comprises lectures (2/3) and problem-based learning activity
Exam type:

The exam is an interview-like discussion. The assessment regards the argumentative skills starting from a case and the acquisition of an appropriate technical language.

Over the summer session, students can opt for a written exam, consisting of a multiple-choice quiz, 20 questions, and a short dissertation, to be held online (moodle) ordinarily the day before the interview exam. In such a case, to pass to the interview, which will revolve around discussing the written exam, a minimum mark of 18/30 is needed.
With attending students way of partitioning the exam into different modules can be agreed.
Sostenibilità:
Further information:

For information and tutorial, I am available at my office (DISEGS, Pescara Campus) every Wednesday at 4 pm. It is possible to fix an online appointment by using the Teams platform

Module I General Notions (2 ECTS)
1. Freedom of speech and human rights
2. Freedom of information within the constitutional context
3. Limits to free speech liberty
4. The right to inform, criticise, and to satire

Module II Sectoral legislation (2 ECTS)
5. Electronic communications
6. The legal regime of the Internet

Module III Horizontal issues (2 ECTS)
7. Privacy
8. The public authorities which govern, manage, and oversight

General Notions
I. Freedom of speech and human rights
1. Constitutional models and fundamental rights
2. The constant increase of individual liberties
3. Art. 2 of the Italian Constitution as an open clause. The “new” rights
4. The international and European protection of human rights. Information rights in supranational legal instruments
5. Free speech and democracy
6. Individualism and functionalism
7. Pluralism and competition: two only partially overlapping concepts
8. Information between global and local dimension
II. Information freedoms in the constitutional framework
1. Individual aspects of free speech: equality versus inequality
2. Objective aspects of free speech: thoughts, opinions, news as equivalent contents
2.1. Free speech and mail delivery
3. Instrumental and substantive protection of free speech
4. A brief of the structure of Article 21 of the Italian Constitution
5. Pro-active freedom of information: A methodological premise
5.1. Substantive profiles
6. The liberty to be informed
7. The (reflective) liberty of seeking information
III. The limits to free speech
1. Explicit and implied limits
2. Explicit limits: Morality
a. Referred to fine arts and science
3. Individual Implied limits
4. Public interest implied limits
IV. The right to inform, criticise, and to satire
1. Press as a privileged form of free speech
2. Slander
3. The right to inform as a legitimate excuse
a. Legal exercise of the right to inform: the social utility of information
b. Illegal exercise of the right to inform: fact trueness
c. Legal exercise of the right to inform: correct exposition
d. Illegal exercise of the right to inform: up-to-date news
4. Interview peculiarity
5. Satire
SECTORS
V. Electronic communications
1. Telecommunications and constitutional principles
2. From public monopoly to universal service
3. The second liberalisation phase.
3.1. The 2002 Electronic Communications Package
4. The Electronic Communications Code and the Italian legal system's peculiar features
5. The 2009 Telecom Package
6. The European Code of Electronic Communication
7. Future challenges

VI. The Internet legal regime
1. The issue of regulating a naturally anarchic means
a. A constitutional right to access the global network?
b. Regulation at the supranational and national scale
2. The multiple forms of free speech on the internet: what law?
3. The EU regulation trilogy for the digital ecosystem: Digital
Markets Act, Digital Services Act, Artificial Intelligence Act
4. Issues regarding the Internet regulation. A public law perspective
a. The Internet non-territoriality and applicable national law
b. Individual liabilities
c. Courts’ preparatory case law
d. Fake news
e. Personal data protection

HORIZONTAL THEMES
VII. Privacy
1. The origin of the right to privacy
: a. Confidentiality and privacy are not overlapping concepts
. b. The long route towards confidentiality protection: precedents
2. The unique features of the Italian model in the European context
3. The EU data protection package
4. The UE/2016/679 regulation and the reform of the Italian Privacy Code
5. Oblivion: a modern right with ancient roots
6. Balancing privacy and information rights. Administrative transparency and journalism rules
VIII. Public authorities which govern, manage, and oversight
1. State bodies
a. Parliament
b. Executive
2. Public broadcaster (RAI)
3. State Agencies: guardians of legality and the market
a. From the Authority for press and publishing to the Authority for communication guarantee (AGCOM)
b. AGCOM structure and functions
c. Competence fragmentation between AGCOM and Antitrust
4. Regional Communication Authorities
5. The Data Protection Ombudsman
6. The National Cybersecurity Agency