Freedom of expression and digital rights in social media: Challenges and risks

Author's Biography

Dr Konstantinos Kouroupis is an Assistant Professor of European and Data Rights Law at the Department of Law at Frederick University, in Cyprus. He graduated in Law from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and he was awarded an LLM Diploma in European Law (DEA de Droit Communautaire) from Université des Sciences Sociales de Toulouse 1, where his master thesis at the field of European Law of Competition has been honoured. In 2014, he was awarded his PhD at the Department of International and European Studies, University of Macedonia in Greece, specialising in European Data Rights Law. His PhD thesis has been evaluated as ‘Excellent’ by the jury consisted of six professors. He has also participated as a speaker on data rights and privacy issues in several international conferences. Some of his studies have been uploaded to the digital library of EUROJUST, in Hague, and are accessible from a large number of prosecutors, judicial officers and administrative staff of the European agency. In 2018, he delivered a speech on ‘National and European legal framework on Cybersecurity and data protection’ as an expert and on behalf of the Republic of Cyprus, during an international exercise under the supervision of the European Defence Agency, held at Zenon Coordination Centre, in Larnaka, in Cyprus. He has participated in European projects regarding the protection of data rights, and he has served as the local project coordinator of European programs (JUSTICE), funded by the European Union, concerning the interpretation and elaboration of the General Data Protection Regulation. At present, he is a member of the European Cost action entitled ‘Global Digital Human Rights Network’, under the auspices of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), serving as Management Committee Delegate, representing Cyprus. He is the author of several legal books and has published articles, both in Greek and English as well as in French to esteemed peerreviewed journals. He is also a member of the research team of Jean Monnet Chair ‘New Dimensions in European Legal Studies’ and Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence of the University of Macedonia in Greece as an expert on data rights law.

Dimitrios Vagianos MSc, PhD, has graduated from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the Aristotle University in Thessaloniki in Greece. He has been awarded an MSc with Distinction in Mobile Communication Systems from the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom. He holds a PhD awarded by the University of Macedonia in Social Web Big Data Mining and Analysis Methods. Currently, he is a member of the Laboratory Teaching Personnel of the Department of International and European Studies of the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki, Greece, and a founding member of the Governance and ICT Lab there. He is teaching stand-alone undergraduate or postgraduate courses, with Digital Media Society, Politics of the Internet, Computer Applications and Multimedia among them. He is a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece, the Greek Association of Civil Servant Engineers and the EU Cost Action CA19142 Management Committee of the Leading Platform for European Citizens, Industries, Academia and Policymakers in Media Accessibility. He has participated in a number of EUfunded projects and has presented parts of his research work at various international conferences. His writings have been published as peer-reviewed papers in several scientific journals and as chapters in edited volumes of international publishers. He can speak English and German.