- Introduction HR Toolkit
- Module 1
- Module 2
- Module 3
- Module 4
- Module 5
- Module 6
- Annexes
Module 1: Translating Human Rights into Digital Rights
Quick Reference
Beyond Digital Rights
Spotlight on The Right to Freedom of Expression
Digital rights designate the set of legal human rights most applicable to the online sphere. The literature on digital rights generally outlines the following rights:
- Universal and equal access to the internet
- Freedom of expression, communication, and access to information
- Freedom of assembly, association, and participation
- Privacy and data protection
- Anonymity and the right to be forgotten
- Protection of minors and young children
Beyond Digital Rights
Beyond emphasising the essential charter of rights listed above, the discussion on digital rights often fails to consider how all human rights might be upheld online, and how to mitigate the impact of online conduct on human rights offline. For instance, incitement to hatred online, can be linked to violent extremism and acts of violence targeting certain communities, in violation of such communities’ right to freedom from degradation and discrimination.
Tech Against Terrorism recommends that tech platforms observe all rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights equally, considering the impact of their online services both on the online and offline spaces.
Spotlight on The Right to Freedom of Expression This toolkit has a focus on how your platform can uphold freedom of expression because “any counterterrorism measure online will remove or limit people’s ability to read see or hear the words, images and sounds they would otherwise wish to encounter; to express the words, images and sounds that they would otherwise like to express; or to engage in”
‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers’.
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The UN has established specific institutions which aim to promote and enforce human rights. including freedom of expression, such as the UN Human Rights Council and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which coordinates human rights activities in the UN system. The UN General Assembly has also adopted numerous resolutions on freedom of expression and the UN introduced in 1993 a Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression whose office conducts country studies and annual and thematic reports which both hold member states to their commitments and act as guidance in meeting these commitments. |