Thema: Digitalisierung & Technologie

Verfassungsrecht für digitale Technologien, KI-Governance, Plattformregulierung, digitale Rechte und verfassungsrechtliche Aspekte des technologischen Wandels. Umfasst digitale Grundrechte, Datenschutz als Verfassungsrecht und verfassungsrechtliche Regulierung neuer Technologien.

A Non-Binary Approach to Platform-to-Business Transactions

Social media is a disruptive technology that has challenged fundamental distinctions in contract law, as social media contracts don't adequately reflect complex relationships between platforms, businesses, and consumers, among others. Contract law has the potential for greater sensitivity to contract classifications because different types of contractual relations invoke different values and trade-offs. Courts can better posit them in the spectrum between business and consumer contracts, while securing business users‘ unique interests

22. Mai 2023

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The Contractual Rights and Obligations of Prosumers on Social Media Platforms

How can contract law contribute to a fair balance between the rights of prosumers and social media platforms? This contribution assesses the values that contract law should reflect, proposing the recognition of use value alongside the exchange value of products on the market. It then considers which mechanisms in contract law could be employed to do justice to both values.

19. Mai 2023

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Digesting the (Not So) Free Lunches of Social Media

It has become common wisdom that “there is no such thing as free lunch.” Social media shows us daily how true this observation remains until today. The ‘conventional’ business model of these platforms focuses on data exploitation, and, increasingly, ‘freemium’ models. While it is obviously worthwhile to explore objectionable business practices in e-commerce and on social media, as 'freemium' models gain traction, this contribution suggests that the discourse on ‘dark patterns’ is somewhat sketchy and incomplete – and in need of more specificity.

19. Mai 2023

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From Contract Law to Online Speech Governance

For years, contract law has been a hidden protagonist in the in the discourse on platform governance. he sound of this silence is especially salient against the backdrop of recent European case law that uses the contractual toolbox to infuse social media terms of service with fundamental rights, in particular the freedom of expression. In this way, contract law has produced – somewhat counterintuitively – one of the most telling responses to the key constitutional issue of social media: how to reconcile freedom of expression as a public value with the private nature of social media platforms.

18. Mai 2023

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The Magic Bullet That Isn’t!

Article 17 of the European Union's Copyright Directive fails to effectively safeguard copyright exceptions, which can gravely undermine users’ freedom of expression in the digital public sphere. Against this backdrop, the enactment of Article 14 of the Digital Services Act offered fresh hope. Could it be the eagerly awaited ‘magic bullet’ that ensures effective protection of user rights to rely copyright exceptions to parody and quotation on social media platforms? The possibility of such an outcome is doubtful.

18. Mai 2023

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Personalized Law and Social Media

Personalization — a paradigm that has been widely and successfully embraced in other areas of human activity, and primarily on social media — may be ready for the law. Social media as a data source to support personalized law is only suitable for a few areas if life. In those areas, however, personalized standards bear enormous potential.

17. Mai 2023

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The Invisible Contract

Many users do not realize that by creating a social media account, they are entering into a legally binding agreement with the platform. It might thus be time to radically rethink the principle of contractual informality online. Social media contracts may regain their importance, and users might become more aware of the contractual implications of clicking on the ‘I Agree’ button.

17. Mai 2023

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Social Media Contracts – The Quest for Fairness and the Need for Reform

The social media landscape is changing. The ‚public forum‘ is now filled with citizens selling products, promoting services, charging for subscriptions, and sometimes seeking attention in ways which may not be socially desirable. We ask: How can a space that is becoming increasingly commercialised, monetised, and is a source of income for many nevertheless be fair?

17. Mai 2023

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Squaring the triangle of fundamental rights concerns

Ex ante, the July 2022 ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU on Passenger Name Records had a very specific scope — the use of passenger name records by government agencies. Upon closer inspection, however, it has important implications for the governance of algorithms more generally. That is true especially for the proposed AI Act, which is currently working its way through the EU institutions. It highlights, ultimately, how national, or in this case European, legal orders may limit the scope for international regulatory harmonization and cooperation.

12. Mai 2023

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Automated predictive threat detection after Ligue des Droits Humains

The Ligue des droits humains ruling regarding automated predictive threat detection has implications for the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) Regulation and the EU Commission’s proposal for a Regulation on combating online child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Both legal instruments entail the use of potentially self-learning algorithms, and are spiritual successors to the PNR Directive (the subject of Ligue des droits humains).

12. Mai 2023

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