From disinformation and post-truth through social media and AI: Are they challenges for criminal law?

Abstract

In the information society, misinformation is a real risk that has serious consequences in life and society in almost any field, such as tourism, the economy, or politics, among others. Artificial intelligence systems that are presented as great tools capable of generating information through the analysis of millions of data points can backfire by creating fakes news that people may take as truth, which is dangerous because it influences the thinking and behavior of the society that receives it. Proposing responses, at least from a legal-criminal perspective, is not an easy task without falling into possible authoritarian approaches that contradict the freedoms inherent in a democracy governed by the values and principles of a protective criminal law.