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.