Norms of Truth and Justice in Digital Societies

Digital societies face profound challenges as technological disruptions like AI-generated content and deepfakes erode trust in information ecosystems. Right to the Truth Day on March 24 honors victims of gross human rights violations, emphasizing legal and societal norms for truth, justice, reparations, and memory. In sociology of law, norms serve as a “norm science” to decode complex motives in social phenomena, differing from natural sciences’ causality by addressing context-bound collective behaviours. Legal systems struggle to adapt traditional concepts to digital realms, where cyber norms emerge alongside societal ones, often clashing amid disinformation campaigns that undermine justice processes. This intersection highlights disruptions in truth-seeking, with empirical implications for governance and human rights. The core problem is the fragmentation of norms governing truth and justice amid digital disruptions, where AI tools amplify disinformation, deepfakes distort evidence in legal proceedings, and motives for norm violations become opaque at societal scales. This erodes public trust, hampers accountability for human rights abuses, and challenges governance in promoting reparations and collective memory. To address this, the Research Topic aims to map intersections of legal, cyber, and societal norms, drawing on norm science to analyze motives and extensions of legal concepts to digital phenomena. Recent advances, such as AI detection frameworks and international cyber norm initiatives, offer tools for empirical studies on normative resilience. By fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, we can propose adaptive governance models that safeguard truth and justice, aligning with sustainable development goals like SDG 16 on just institutions. This Research Topic explores how legal, cyber, and societal norms intersect to uphold truth and justice in digital societies disrupted by AI, deepfakes, and disinformation. Contributions should provide in-depth analysis of norm interplay, empirical implications, and sources of disruption, maintaining a sociological perspective on law and society. We welcome original research, reviews, and perspectives emphasizing human/institutional behavior. Suggested themes which may be explored in the Research Topic, include, but are not limited to:• Extension of legal norms to AI-generated content and deepfakes in justice systems.• Motives and collective behaviors driving disinformation’s impact on truth-seeking.• Cyber norms versus societal norms in governance of digital platforms. • Empirical studies on normative disruptions in human rights accountability.• Comparative analysis of norms in ecological, technological, and social systems (e.g., SDG 9, 16). • Adaptive strategies for reparations and memory in post-truth digital eras. Topic editors: Håkan Hydén Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/78511/norms-of-truth-and-justice-in-digital-societies