Alex Mills` final chapter focuses on the question of choice of law. Mills uses defamation law as a starting point. For Mills, problems related to choice of law are multiplying online, as communication will easily cross borders and complicate choice of rules and jurisdiction issues. For Mills, these problems are almost inevitable because the existing law is outdated, because it is state-centered and territorial. It is therefore not in a position to cope with the unlimited regulatory problems of the twenty-first century. Mills` discussion comes at a time when he radically challenges and invites the reader to think beyond statist territorial jurisdictions and incorporate non-state-centric online considerations when addressing recurring cross-border regulatory/legal issues. Perhaps, with its concise wording, we can begin to think about rights and regulation without borders and across cultures, that is, beyond the political, territorial, cultural and legal boundaries of the nation-state. In Chapter 5, Daithí Mac Síthigh explores the issue of contempt of court and new media by examining how the use of the Internet and social media has complicated contempt law related to interference or subversion of the administration of justice. Through an analysis of cases involving prominent public figures, Mac Síthigh shows how immediate and inexorable publication (ignoring images and comments) on the Internet via social media can harm defendants and their convictions. It suggests that representations of the particular nature of the internet in relation to the contempt law have been exaggerated or dismissed altogether, and what is needed is a nuanced/compromised view that recognizes the significant challenges the internet poses to contempt. In Chapter 2, which opens this collection, Andrew D.
Murray explores the development of a framework that reflects the rule of law on the Internet. According to Murray, we should not analyze regulatory issues from a micro perspective, but also from a macro perspective – if we want to address broader issues of culture, morality and values in a globally interconnected context. Subsequently, by answering the key question of this article, what the rule of law is, Murray sketches an external picture of jurisprudence from a globalized perspective. Using examples from extradition case studies and the principle of extraterritorial impact, Murray questions whether individuals in one jurisdiction, such as the United Kingdom, can be held criminally responsible for crimes committed in another jurisdiction, such as Nigeria or Thailand. In doing so, it reveals a fundamental gap in the rule of law online, in particular with regard to practical legal issues such as legitimacy, predictability, interpretation and case law. Indeed, for Murray and for readers, an intractable legal conflict (i.e. internal/external extraterritorial effects) remains, in which the rule of law is replaced by an overlapping and contradictory legal norm. This seems to be the result of a weak foundation of the notion of the rule of law in sovereign and liberal-positivist state thought, which requires a common moral cultural experience. The Legal Challenges of Social Media is the result of a research collaboration led by Lorna Gillies and David Mangan at the University of Leicester Law School in December 2013. Overall, the research topics in this collection cover current social media issues that intersect law, politics, and politics. As the editors note, the purpose of the book is not to provide an overview of the law, but to outline different frameworks of interpretation so that readers can deal with difficult topics related to: 1) social media and law; (2) public order in a virtual space; (3) private law reactions to social media; and (4) cross-border regulatory issues of virtual space. In Chapter 6, Lorna Woods draws readers` attention to human rights that go beyond the scope of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, namely the right to freedom of expression.
For Woods, Article 10 does not adequately reflect certain aspects of social media use. Therefore, more attention should be paid to the role of Article 8 (which provides for a right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence) if we are to create a coherent framework for the protection of individual rights online. Much of Wood`s argument is based on the fact that Article 8.1) is related to the development of personality and (communal) identity; and 2) a broad scope covering topics such as data protection, privacy, family life, home and correspondence. However, since Wood`s arguments are persuasive, it seems to me that his conceptualization of free speech and human rights in general is limited and conservative. A reconception of digital rights that seeks to transcend the boundaries of Article 10 while operating within the general liberal framework of human rights will inevitably result in inherent and contradictory statist violence (i.e., a liberal-statist-„what do we do-US“ hierarchy of humanity or man in human rights) that undermines our conceptualization of freedom and rights in a global interconnectedness. .
