The background of this research is the development of digital media, which has increased the risk of disseminating harmful information through press activities, including hoaxes, slander, defamation, and hate speech that affect individual honor and social order. The research gap lies in the limited number of studies focusing on constructing criminal liability in response to the development of digital media, particularly the dissemination of harmful information through press activities, based on maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah. This issue creates a need to construct criminal liability that is oriented not only toward legal certainty but also toward the values of justice and public benefit. Previous studies have generally examined qadzaf, defamation, or hoaxes separately and have therefore not yet produced a comprehensive legal framework for press activities. The novelty of this research lies in its effort to integrate the concept of criminal liability in fiqh jinayah with a maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah approach in formulating a model of press criminal liability that is more adaptive to developments in digital media. The objective of this research is to examine press criminal liability for the dissemination of harmful information from the perspectives of fiqh jinayah and maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah. This study employs normative legal research using statutory, conceptual, and comparative approaches. The data consist of primary, secondary, and tertiary legal materials, which are analyzed qualitatively using a prescriptive method. The results show that fiqh jinayah recognizes various forms of violations against honor, such as qadzaf, buhtan, ghibah, and namimah, which may serve as a basis for criminal liability for the dissemination of harmful information. Press criminal liability needs to be based on the integration of the principles of fiqh jinayah and maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah in order to protect individual honor, preserve public benefit, and ensure responsible press freedom in the digital era.
Copyrights © 2026