Il tempo delle istituzioni di libertà. Piattaforme digitali, disinformazione e discorso pubblico europeo

The essay analyzes digital disinformation in light of developments in the public sphere. To understand and offer adequate regulation of this phenomenon, it is necessary to change the methodological approach in the study of constitutional freedoms. These should no longer be analyzed through the dogmatic figurine of negative freedoms, but as institutions of freedom, social spaces that require a positive obligation to regulate in order to safeguard values positively affirmed by constitutional provisions. Rights connected to Article 21 Const. identify the coordinates of public discourse, a space where communicative interactions take place legitimizing, on a substantive level, the procedural mechanisms of the democratic-representative circuit. The European Union’s recent regulatory activism must be placed within this theoretical framework: the DSA, in particular, imposes procedures and transparency obligations that affect the infrastructural model adopted by platforms, safeguarding the values underlying European public discourse.