Anti-fake News Legislations and Free Speech: A Comparative Evaluation of the Trends in Germany, Malaysia, and Kenya

Suleiman Usman Santuraki

2018

Abstract

Fake news is intended to misinform, deceive, or manipulate the public. It may create tension and potentially crisis of untold proportions. It may also scare people from expressing themselves for fear of becoming a source of fake news. Consequently, national regulators have resorted to regulating fake news especially on the social media, to prevent an impending and imminent catastrophe that it could lead to. The idea behind the regulation of fake news is not in itself blameworthy, it may be used to suppress free speech by wide and subjective definitions of fake news. Using doctrinal as well as comparative methodologies, this paper appraises the trend between states of passing laws or proposing laws to regulate fake news. It appraises the contents of such laws from Germany, Malaysia, and Kenya, to show how they affect free speech. It finds that though some provisions of the legislations considered may negatively affect free speech in those jurisdictions, some measures were taken to restrict such effects. The paper concludes that textually, the German legislation made more strained efforts to avoid negative impacts on free speech, while the Malaysian law looks procedurally sound by subjecting decisions to judicial review. The Kenyan law categorically derogated from the constitutional guaranty of free speech.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Santuraki S. (2018). Anti-fake News Legislations and Free Speech: A Comparative Evaluation of the Trends in Germany, Malaysia, and Kenya.In Proceedings of the International Law Conference - Volume 1: i-NLAC, ISBN 978-989-758-482-4, pages 296-305. DOI: 10.5220/0010049502960305

in Bibtex Style

@conference{i-nlac18,
author={Suleiman Usman Santuraki},
title={Anti-fake News Legislations and Free Speech: A Comparative Evaluation of the Trends in Germany, Malaysia, and Kenya},
booktitle={Proceedings of the International Law Conference - Volume 1: i-NLAC,},
year={2018},
pages={296-305},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010049502960305},
isbn={978-989-758-482-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the International Law Conference - Volume 1: i-NLAC,
TI - Anti-fake News Legislations and Free Speech: A Comparative Evaluation of the Trends in Germany, Malaysia, and Kenya
SN - 978-989-758-482-4
AU - Santuraki S.
PY - 2018
SP - 296
EP - 305
DO - 10.5220/0010049502960305