In collaboration with Northwestern University in Qatar, the College of Law and Public Policy at HBKU is hosting a colloquium to discuss the emergence of various social media tools and their implications on legal aspects, with a special focus on the GCC area.
There are many differences between social media and more conventional media with regard to the challenges they pose to regulators and the legal system in general. Social media tools rely on the mutual engagement of both social media firms and the consumers of social media, while more traditional forms of media are usually one-directional. This creates possibly new problems that may emerge out of this new world of social media and how the law can react in order to address the issues. Self-regulation has presented itself as an option; the effectiveness of self-regulation is uncertain, and questions of more traditional means of regulation come to the fore. The self-regulated industry and the government regulators need to take many factors into account, including the crucial aspect of privacy, data protection, and consumer protection, in particular in view of the challenges set by “big data.”
The colloquium aims to introduce the audience to the challenges the emergence of the new technology of social media sets to policymakers and the legal system in general. The event is part of the Law and Public Policy Colloquium Series.
The colloquium will include a panel discussion with four participants:
The colloquium will be conducted in the English language. Simultaneous translation will not be available.