Digital Participatory Culture: Assessing the Moroccan New Media Legal Challenges

Abstract

This paper discusses the development of freedom of speech regulation in the Moroccan legal system.   It especially looks at the intersection of legal texts in the context of new media use. While it highlights that Internet regulation is still an understudied subject, it sheds light on the Moroccan legal apparatus and how it has responded to the growing challenges of new media use. Through an assessment of the myriad of intersecting codes and bills that apply to new media and affect freedom of expression in particular, it demonstrates how the existing and developing new media regulation tends to impact the growth and the enjoyment of the full potential of the Internet through continuous "chilling effects". To demonstrate the probability of these chilling effects, a sample of a dozen historical legal cases is presented to substantiate how the judicial system is reproducing the legal atmosphere that characterized the practice of freedom of expression in traditional media.

Keywords: new media, Morocco, freedom of expression, chilling effects.