Internet Intermediaries and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights: The New Subjects of Media Freedom

Abstract

How the principles of freedom of expression, developed over the centuries, can be preserved and passed on, and how the activities of these powerful intermediaries can be aligned with the legal doctrines of fundamental rights are massive issues for the legal regulation and thus for the practice of the ECtHR in the case law related to Article 10 of the Convention – and seem certain to remain so in the coming decades. Although the ECtHR has dealt with relatively few cases on the above subject matter to date, reviewing these will be illuminating, as they seem to outline (albeit inconsistently) a theoretical base that is adapting the traditional questions of freedom of expression to the new media landscape, and on which the ECtHR can rely when delivering judgments in future cases. As such, the ECtHR can in turn influence the regulation of the European public sphere as a whole through its decisions.