Federica Casarosa

Biography

Federica Casarosa is a Research affiliate at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies. Since graduating in Private Law (University of Pisa, 2001) and subsequently obtaining a PhD in Law (European University Institute, 2008), she has focused on the intersection between law and technology, analysing the role of information in consumer contracts, protection of personal data of consumers and Internet users in general, and the impact of cybersecurity regulation on private law. She has experience training legal professionals in her role as scientific coordinator on various training projects led by the Centre for Judicial Cooperation (EUI).

Workshop contributions

Disinformation and Democracy: the role of courts at the boundary between the rule of law and freedom of expression in the digital society

The presentation will argue that the rise of AI‑driven disinformation strategies fundamentally alters the relationship between freedom of expression and the rule of law by amplifying, accelerating, and obscuring manipulative political communication at an unprecedented scale. This development challenges the judiciary’s classical role as a guardian of free expression, raising the risk that interventions justified by opaque AI systems could be misused in contexts of democratic backsliding. Within this transformed landscape, EU instruments such as the Digital Services Act and the AI Act reconfigure the rule of law by imposing transparency, accountability, and risk‑mitigation duties on private actors whose AI technologies increasingly shape democratic discourse.