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The purpose of this essay is to examine whether current EU regulation of disinformation online is justifiable from a constitutional law perspective, assessed in relation to the protec­tion of the freedom of expression and information. The study initially clarifies the motives behind the EU regulation in question by examining the potential effects that a widespread dissemination of misleading or false information could have on democracy. The protection of the freedom of speech and information provided for by Article 10 of the ECHR and Article 11 of the EU Charter is later examined as regards to the possibility of regulating disinformation and the possibility to hold online intermediaries responsible for the content which they mediate and store. Both existing and recently proposed EU regulation of disinformation is mainly based on what can be considered as a union initiated self-regulation: platform companies are encouraged to counter disinformation on their own initiative through terms of use and content moderation. To some extent, these efforts are then monitored and supervised by the EU. The primary motivation to counteract disinformation is that it may jeopardize citizens’ abilities to make informed decisions and thereby impede public debate. Addi­tionally, an extensive spread of disinformation is considered to undermine citizens' trust in democratic institutions. Since the regulation aims to protect the purposes of the freedom of expression and information, as central preconditions in a well-functioning democracy, it can to a certain extent be considered advantageous from a rights perspective. Meanwhile, the regulation also raises some concerns evaluated in the light of the Convention and the Charter. In particular, it could be questioned whether the regulation is compatible with the legality requirement of Article 10 ECHR and Article 52 (1) of the EU Charter. Furthermore, the risk of platform companies removing more content than the provisions allow may be con­sidered significant, especially in view of the broad EU definition of disinformation. Hence, the EU regulation of disinformation raises a conflict of interest regarding the risk of disinformation and the protection of freedom of expression and information in today's digitalized democracies.

This master’s thesis is about freedom of information ideas in the European Union data retention directive, 2006/24/EC. The directive means that data about electronic communications services will be retentioned. The aim of the thesis is to examine what ideas related to freedom of information that appear in the directive and how these ideas belong to the ideology of freedom of information that is common within the library community and to the juridical restrictions. In the light of surveillance tendencies that have occurred over the last years, the most well-known is probably the USA Patriot Act, it is interesting to study how freedom of information ideas appears when surveillance is legislated. The theory used comes from the dissertation of Stuart Hamilton which is about freedom of information and its barriers in libraries. The method that I have used is the idea and ideology analysis. My study shows that the freedom of information ideas that appears in the directive 2006/24/EC belongs to surveillance and privacy. The surveillance ideas have to do with the permitted restrictions. The privacy ideas have mainly to do with the ideology of freedom of information but also to the juridical permitted restrictions. Even if there is nothing explicit in the directive about the freedom to seek, receive and impart information or freedom of access to information, the two definitions of freedom of information are influenced by ideas of surveillance and privacy. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The Swedish institute of racial biology was the first of its kind in the world. The purpose of their activity was to gather information about the different kind of racial characters of the Swedish population. They did this by traveling around the country gathering pictures and statistic information. In 1958 it was decided that the institute was going to get integrated with the University of Uppsala and change its research focus to a more medical genetic. Most of the research material also got integrated into the university’s library.The purpose of this paper is to find out how the institutes collection has been handled through the ages and if there have been any controversy or debate about it. To put it in perspective I also want to see how the University of Uppsala handles other sensitive materials in their collection.The collection has always been open to everyone who wanted to take part of its content. But the documentation of the collections handling has been poor and quite a big part of the collection has been lost, for unknown reasons. The only part of it that has been restricted is the material that contains pictures of naked children. These restrictions were set just a few years ago by Uppsala University, and they are almost ineffective since the librarians have no means to uphold them.There seems to be a lack of discussion about the handling of material of a sensitive nature on behalf of the librarian community. Since there apparently needs to be some sort of restrictions towards some material in the libraries collections, this restrictions need to be discussed so they get the desired effects. / Program: Bibliotekarie

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The overarching aim of this master’s thesis is to investigate what role the accessibility of EU documents plays for the democracy in the EU. A three-pillar approach was adopted, consisting of a text analysis of the Regulation 1049/2001, which promotes transparency, and an analytical induction analysis of the cases where access to EU documents was denied despite the European Ombudsman’s recommendation to the contrary. The third pillar refers to the interplay between the two first; a contested field with ideals on the one side and the political reality on the other. The main findings are that the positive picture of openness presented in the Regulation does not correspond with the cases. Although openness is used as a rhetorical tool in the Regulation, the case material shows that the EU has tried to restrain the development towards openness. The study suggests that although the EU officially promotes accountability through openness, its unofficial attitudes rather reminds of the concept of responsibility (Lewin 2007) that enables a more restrictive approach to transparency. Thus, both the legal frameworks and the informal factors play a role in determining the accessibility of the EU archives and its role for European democracy. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum Studies with special focus on Archival Science. / Den här masteruppsatsen behandlar tillgänglighetsfrågor i samband med EU:s arkiv- och dokumenthantering och dess roll och betydelse för demokratin inom EU. Först undersöktes förordning 1049/2001 med hjälp av en textanalys för att ta reda på hur EU värderar öppenhet. Därefter vändes fokus till de fall där tillgång till dokument nekats, trots Europeiska Ombudsmannens råd. Slutligen sammanfördes dessa komponenter för att skapa en bild av spänningsfältet mellan ideal och realitet. Studien visar att öppenhet framställs mycket positivt i förordningen. Emellertid stämmer den bilden inte överens med fallmaterialet. Detta visar hur EU i de enskilda fallen försökt motverka utvecklingen mot ökad öppenhet. En trolig slutsats vore att EU stödjer koncepten öppenhet och ansvarsskyldighet i teorin, men att attityden i praktiken snarare ligger nära begreppet ”responsibility” (Lewin 2007), som möjliggör en mer restriktiv inställning till öppenhet. Det lagliga ramverket är därmed inte den enda faktorn som påverkar hur tillgängliga EU:s handlingar verkligen är och vilken roll de spelar för demokratin inom unionen. Denna masteruppsats är skriven inom mastersprogrammet i ABM (arkiv, bibliotek, museum), inriktning arkivvetenskap.

Does the freedom of information apply to delinquents? According to Swedish law, prisoners and detainees should have access to library services comparable to public libraries. However, this is not the case since there is specific literature not allowed in prison. Interestingly, The Swedish Library Act (2013:801) states that the library’s task is to promote the development of a democratic society by openness to various perspectives, i.e. no censorship or other obstructive measures. This Bachelor’s thesis aims to analyse how Swedish prison libraries are portrayed in journals from the library and information sector by identifying different discourses in articles.  The library and information profession have long been characterised by traditions of fairness, open inquiry, service and humanism. These traditions also form social justice theory in library and information science. By identifying discourses related to fairness, open inquiry, service and humanism in articles written in journals from the library and information sector, this Bachelor’s thesis illuminates attitudes toward prison libraries’ media collections and rehabilitative purposes. It is shown that Swedish prison libraries’ media collections are portrayed as restricted and censored, which according to discourses related to fairness, open inquiry, service and humanism, have a negative impact on rehabilitative measures as well as maintaining the freedom of information.

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The focus of this master thesis is the library politics of the French Right wing party the National Front and the debate that followed the application of this politics. This qualitative study is divided into two parts where the critics to this politics represents one side and the adherents the other. The critics are composed by representatives from the French, Swedish and – to some extent – international library sector, while the adherent side is made up of politicians from the National Front and their adherents. The empiric material mostly consists of articles published in library, Right wing and daily press. The aim is to investigate to what extent the ideas proposed by opponents and adherents correspond to basic ideological elements of deliberative democracy respectively populism. The documents have been interpreted with an ideology analysis formulated by Herbert Tingsten and developed by Sven-Erik Liedman. In the analysis the results are also associated with the history and the role of the public library as well as the cultural politics of the National Front. The result of this study discloses that the ideas of the critics as well as those of the adherents correspond to a large extent to respective ideology, thou certain aspects contradict them. The opinions of the critic side are also shown to be closely related to those presented in documents concerning the role of the public library. Seen in a broader context, the library politics of the National Front could be considered as part of a cultural strategy. / Uppsatsnivå: D