Information as a Human Right

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-35
Author(s):  
Lesley S. J. Farmer
Keyword(s):  
Information Society ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Equitable Access ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The Core ◽  
Other Information ◽  
Physical Access ◽  
Information Providers ◽  
Content Information

Information lies at the core of freedom of expression since it empowers citizens to understand the functions of media and other information providers, to access and critically evaluate their content, and to make informed decisions as users and producer of information and media content. Information and related technologies have become increasingly essential to education, employment, social interaction, and civic participation. Resultantly, greater focus has been placed on the idea that information is a necessary human right. While physical access to technology is now imperative to survive and contribute in today's Information Society, intellectual access is also required, particularly with the Internet's interactive socially collaborative mode. In addition, organizations need to provide the infrastructure and other preconditions to insure equitable access and use of information.

Information as a Human Right

2016 ◽  
pp. 88-103
Author(s):  
Lesley Farmer
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Civic Participation ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Equitable Access ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The Core ◽  
Other Information ◽  
Physical Access ◽  
Information Providers ◽  
Content Information

Information lies at the core of freedom of expression since it empowers citizens to understand the functions of media and other information providers, to access and critically evaluate their content, and to make informed decisions as users and producer of information and media content. Information and related technologies have become increasingly essential to education, employment, social interaction, and civic participation. Resultantly, greater focus has been placed on the idea that information is a necessary human right. While physical access to technology is now imperative to survive and contribute in today's Information Society, intellectual access is also required, particularly with the Internet's interactive socially collaborative mode. In addition, organizations need to provide the infrastructure and other preconditions to insure equitable access and use of information.

scholarly journals Squaring the Circle Between Freedom of Expression and Platform Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Karanicolas
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Human Right ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
The Core ◽  
Legal Limits ◽  
International Human ◽  
Global Pressure

Among the greatest emerging challenges to global efforts to promote and protect human rights is the role of private sector entities in their actualization, since international human rights rules were designed to apply primarily, and in many cases solely, to the actions of governments. This paradigm is particularly evident in the expressive space, where private sector platforms play an enormously influential role in determining the boundaries of acceptable speech online, with none of the traditional guardrails governing how and when speech should be restricted. Many governments now view platform-imposed rules as a neat way of sidestepping legal limits on their own exercise of power, pressuring private sector entities to crack down on content which they would be constitutionally precluded from targeting directly. For their part, the platforms have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the level of responsibility they now wield, and in recent years have sought to modernize and improve their moderation frameworks in line with the growing global pressure they face. At the heart of these discussions are debates around how traditional human rights concepts like freedom of expression might be adapted to the context of “platform law.” This Article presents a preliminary framework for applying foundational freedom of expression standards to the context of private sector platforms, and models how the three-part test, which lies at the core of understandings of freedom of expression as a human right, could be applied to platforms’ moderation functions.

Freedom of Expression in the Cameroonian Democratic Transition

1995 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Manga Fombad
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
External Pressure ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
New Order ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
New Era ◽  
Difficult Time

Freedom of expression is not only a fundamental human right but also constitutes one of the essential elements in the establishment of a democratic society. No country can seriously profess to be a democracy, or pretend to be making efforts towards this, if its citizens cannot freely express their opinions. Recent moves to introduce freedom of expression in Cameroon have come at a particularly difficult time. Like most African countries, it is on the horns of a dilemma. As it struggles to cope with an ever deepening economic crisis, it has come under strong internal and external pressure to democratise. The winds of change which blew into Africa at the end of the 1980s, when former communist-block single-party régimes collapsed, appeared to herald the beginning of a new era. But as leaders are increasingly pressed by impatient citizens to unfreeze their political, social, and economic rights, tyrants and dictators posing as democrats seem to be determining the nature and guiding principles of the new order.

Governing Fake News: The Regulation of Social Media and the Right to Freedom of Expression in the Era of Emergency

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-41
Author(s):  
Donato VESE
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Media Censorship

Governments around the world are strictly regulating information on social media in the interests of addressing fake news. There is, however, a risk that the uncontrolled spread of information could increase the adverse effects of the COVID-19 health emergency through the influence of false and misleading news. Yet governments may well use health emergency regulation as a pretext for implementing draconian restrictions on the right to freedom of expression, as well as increasing social media censorship (ie chilling effects). This article seeks to challenge the stringent legislative and administrative measures governments have recently put in place in order to analyse their negative implications for the right to freedom of expression and to suggest different regulatory approaches in the context of public law. These controversial government policies are discussed in order to clarify why freedom of expression cannot be allowed to be jeopardised in the process of trying to manage fake news. Firstly, an analysis of the legal definition of fake news in academia is presented in order to establish the essential characteristics of the phenomenon (Section II). Secondly, the legislative and administrative measures implemented by governments at both international (Section III) and European Union (EU) levels (Section IV) are assessed, showing how they may undermine a core human right by curtailing freedom of expression. Then, starting from the premise of social media as a “watchdog” of democracy and moving on to the contention that fake news is a phenomenon of “mature” democracy, the article argues that public law already protects freedom of expression and ensures its effectiveness at the international and EU levels through some fundamental rules (Section V). There follows a discussion of the key regulatory approaches, and, as alternatives to government intervention, self-regulation and especially empowering users are proposed as strategies to effectively manage fake news by mitigating the risks of undue interference by regulators in the right to freedom of expression (Section VI). The article concludes by offering some remarks on the proposed solution and in particular by recommending the implementation of reliability ratings on social media platforms (Section VII).

scholarly journals Your Tweets Reveal What You Like: Introducing Cross-media Content Information into Multi-domain Recommendation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weizhi Ma ◽  
Min Zhang ◽  
Chenyang Wang ◽  
Cheng Luo ◽  
Yiqun Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cold Start ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Target Domain ◽  
Underlying Assumption ◽  
Cross Media ◽  
Cross Platform ◽  
Rating Prediction ◽  
Cross Media Content ◽  
Content Information

Cold start is a challenging problem in recommender systems. Many previous studies attempt to utilize extra information from other platforms to alleviate the problem. Most of the leveraged information is on-topic, directly related to users' preferences in the target domain. Thought to be unrelated, users' off-topic content information (such as user tweets) is usually omitted. However, the off-topic content information also helps to indicate the similarity of users on their tastes, interests, and opinions, which matches the underlying assumption of Collaborative Filtering (CF) algorithms. In this paper, we propose a framework to capture the features from user's off-topic content information in social media and introduce them into Matrix Factorization (MF) based algorithms. The framework is easy to understand and flexible in different embedding approaches and MF based algorithms. To the best of our knowledge, there is no previous study in which user's off-topic content in other platforms is taken into consideration. By capturing the cross-platform content including both on-topic and off-topic information, multiple algorithms with several embedding learning approaches have achieved significant improvements in rating prediction on three datasets. Especially in cold start scenarios, we observe greater enhancement. The results confirm our suggestion that off-topic cross-media information also contributes to the recommendation.

scholarly journals Freedom of Expression in Malaysia: Compatibility with the International Human Rights Standard

BESTUUR ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Saidah Fasihah Binti Che Yussoff ◽  
Rohaida Nordin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human

<p>Malaysia is likely to introduce new laws on freedom of information. However, the important questions are whether the said laws are effective and will have enough bite with the public looking forward to opening government policy. Freedom of information has developed under international human rights law as the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart knowledge and ideas through media, regardless of any frontier. This paper aims to examine freedom of expression under the international realm, scrutinize the said freedom in the Malaysian legal framework, and discuss the proposed enactment of freedom of information laws in Malaysia in conformity with international human rights law. This research uses the qualitative research method. This paper concludes that freedom of information in Malaysia is severely impeded by the enforcement of the Official Secret Act. This paper calls for the repeal or amendment to the Act in conformity with international standards.  </p><p><strong>Keywords</strong><strong>:</strong> Expression; Freedom; Expression; Human Right.</p>

scholarly journals Peranan Pendidikan Kewarganegaraan sebagai pilar pendidikan hak asasi manusia

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Warsono Warsono
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Civics Education ◽  
The Core ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Democratic Principle

Human Rights are a fundamental problem in every country. especially in the developing countries such as Indonesia. Even though, the state had given protection of human right for everybody, but in Indonesia there are many breakdowns of it. As a democratic state, Indonesia has to regard human right. It is because the human rights were the core of democratic principle. So, the human rights must be trained in the school for every student. By using this way, everybody can know what their rights and obligations very well Civics education can be a vehicle for this goal, because it's one of lessons that talk about human rights and be learned in all school.

The Gay Oral History Project in Zimbabwe: Black Empowerment, Human Rights, and the Research Process

1999 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 25-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Epprecht
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Community Activists ◽  
Other Information ◽  
Black Empowerment

This paper discusses an attempt to apply historical research directly to the development of a culture of human rights and democracy in Zimbabwe. The research concerns sensitive and controversial issues around sexuality, race, and nationalism that are important in and of themselves. What I would like to argue here, however, is that the method used to design and carry out the research project is at least as interesting. This holds true from the point of view of both professional historians like myself and community activists—two perspectives that are often difficult to reconcile in practice. In this project, “ivory tower” and “grassroots” are brought together in a mutually enriching relationship that offers an alternative model to the methods that currently predominate in the production of historical knowledge in southern Africa.Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) is a non-government organization that was founded in 1990. It provides counseling, legal and other support services to men and women struggling with issues of sexuality. It also strives to promote a politics in Zimbabwe that would embrace sexual orientation as a human right. Toward the latter goal it has lobbied government for changes to current laws that discriminate against homosexuals and which expose gay men and women to extortion (so far, in vain). With somewhat more success, it has lobbied the police directly to raise awareness of the extortion issue. GALZ also publishes pamphlets, a newsletter, and other information designed to educate Zimbabweans in general about homosexuality and homophobia. Through these efforts it seeks to challenge popular stereotypes of homosexuals as Westernized perverts who spread diseases and corrupt children. One recent publication included detailed historical research that showed how homosexual practices—including loving and mutual homosexual relationships—have been indigenous to the country throughout recorded history, and probably from time immemorial.

Deferring Citizens' “Right to Know” in an Information Age

2019 ◽  
pp. 264-286
Author(s):  
William Edward Heuva
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Right To Know ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Emerging Democracies ◽  
The Right To Know ◽  
Policy Frameworks ◽  
Constitutional Right ◽  
The Right

Namibia is one of the emerging democracies that have not yet enacted the Access to Information legislation. While the country has guaranteed freedom of expression and media in its constitution, it has not provided for Access to Information as a constitutional right. This chapter seeks to examine Namibia's reluctance to adopt an Access to Information legislation. It interrogates views that locate the omission of this fundamental human right in the country's constitutional (legal) and policy frameworks. It underscores the failure by Namibia to reverse the information black-out suffered under the Apartheid dispensation. The chapter starts with a theoretical/philosophical rationale for the right to know to elicit an understanding of this discourse and its relevance to emerging democracies, such as Namibia. It then examines attempts by state and civil society to introduce the legislation in the country. Predicted on praxis, the chapter in conclusion provides some suggestions that may help resolving the impasse in adopting the Access to Information legislation in the county.

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