Humor is often at the center of complex legal cases and content moderation decisions regarding free speech and its limits. How can judges – or social media platforms – strike a fair balance between satire and defamation, provocative jokes and hate speech, or parody and copyright violation? These challenges have become increasingly daunting in the digital age, with ironic ambiguity and context collapse playing a key role in online communication. Moreover, generative AI (e.g. deepfakes) has further muddled the line between legitimate creative reuse on the one hand (as in parody or satire), and the violation of personal or IP rights on the other.

These issues lie at the center of the forthcoming toolkit What’s in a Joke? Assessing Humor in Free Speech Jurisprudence and Content Moderation, authored by Alberto Godioli (University of Groningen), Sabine Jacques (University of Liverpool), Ariadna Matamoros Fernández (Queensland University of Technology) and Jennifer Young (University of Groningen) with funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO Impact Explorer grant). The toolkit is primarily intended for legal professionals and Trust & Safety agents, with the aim of helping them establish an informed, well-balanced and consistent approach to humorous expression in light of both human rights law and interdisciplinary humor research. However, it will also be of interest to policy makers and advocacy groups, by addressing topical questions concerning both the protection of lawful humorous expression and the adjudication of illegal or borderline (albeit superficially humorous) content. Lastly, it aims to assist humor creators of all types – from comedians and cartoonists to ‘ordinary’ social media users – in gaining awareness of their rights, while also highlighting the links between certain types of derogatory humor, hate and harm.

On October 25, 2024, the toolkit authors will join us at Columbia University to present an advanced draft of the toolkit and collect feedback before finalizing its publication, which is scheduled for January 2025. The authors’ presentation will focus on the four main sections of the toolkit: I. Interpreting humor in context, II. Authoritarian crackdowns on humor and satire, III. Humor, online harm and content moderation, and IV. Humor and Intellectual Property law.

The presentations will be followed by an open Q&A and a roundtable with four members of the project’s Advisory Board, namely Lady Justice Stella Isibhakhomen Anukam (African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights), JUDr. Barbora Bukovská (ARTICLE 19), Mehdi Benchelah (UNESCO) and Judge Darian Pavli (European Court of Human Rights).

This event is co-sponsored by Columbia Global Freedom of Expression, The University of Groningen, The Dutch Research Council (NWO) and The Forum for Humor and the Law (ForHum).

What’s in a Joke? Humor in Free Speech Jurisprudence and Content Moderation