Freedom of Speech, Privacy, and Ethical and Social Responsibility in Democracy in the Digital Age

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 34-83
Author(s):  
José Poças Rascão

The article addresses human rights, in particular freedom of expression and the right to privacy, including on the internet, proposing to emphasize the issue of their dialectics in the context of contemporary digital society that, in the face of the digitization of modern life, faces many challenges. It becomes necessary in this way to understand, through a theoretical review, the history of fundamental human rights, a psychosocial analysis of the concepts of freedom and privacy, the normative framework in which they fall, the internet as a platform for exercising rights and freedoms, the problems associated with it, digital data and people's movements, citizen surveillance, social engineering of power, online social networks and e-commerce, and spaces of trust and conflict.

Author(s):  
José Poças Rascão ◽  
Nuno Gonçalo Poças

The article is about human rights freedom of expression, the right to privacy, and ethics. Technological development (internet and social networks) emphasizes the issue of dialectics and poses many challenges. It makes the theoretical review, the history of human rights through and reference documents, an analysis of the concepts of freedom, privacy, and ethics. The internet and social networks pose many problems: digital data, people's tracks, the surveillance of citizens, the social engineering of power, online social networks, e-commerce, spaces of trust, and conflict.


2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (32) ◽  
pp. 39-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thaddeus Manu ◽  
Felipe Romero Moreno

Abstract While freedom of expression has a long and well-established constitutional foundation as a self-governing concept, the right to privacy is a relatively recent norm in the constitutional orientation of the United Kingdom. Until the Human Rights Act 1998, the right to privacy had little standing constitutionally. Following on from this standard-setting, notably, both rights have taken on added importance in our modern technological society. Nevertheless, the formulation of privacy into a legal doctrine of human rights seems to have presented a fundamental tension in relation to freedom of expression. As a matter of legal logic, the courts, through a consideration of the law, examine the substantive legal issues in terms of a balancing process, whereby the interest in privacy is balanced against the interest in freedom of expression. It is a matter of broad principle for the courts to rely on injunctions as ancillary instruments of equity in doing justice in this field. Significantly, while the elementary norm of an injunction is that it commands an act that the court regards as an essential constituent to justice, unfortunately, many contend that judges have gone beyond this point, and this is shifting opinions. In fact, serious concerns have been frequently expressed about the extent to which the rich are easily able to invoke the discretion of the court to grant injunctions in a fashion that remains an antithesis to the principle of open justice and also undermines the exercise of freedom of speech. While this suspicion is not entirely new to matters of procedural law, the recent case, PJS v News Group Newspapers turned on this controversy. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to examine the complexity of celebrity privacy injunctions in the age of the internet and question its relevance, as we outline the extent to which social media is challenging the authority of the state (judiciary) in this direction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-40
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Demczuk ◽  

The measure of civilizational progress is not only economic development, which for several years has been determined by the development of computer science, but also an increase in the level of respect for human rights and freedoms guaranteed in various international legal documents. The Internet is increasingly determining the use of personal, political, social, and economic rights. Public authorities, as part of positive obligations, should be more actively involved in the protection of human rights, especially the freedom of expression and the right to privacy, which are currently being violated quite widely and especially in the horizontal dimension in cyberspace.


Author(s):  
Allan Hepburn

In the 1940s and 1950s, Britain was relatively uniform in terms of race and religion. The majority of Britons adhered to the Church of England, although Anglo-Catholic leanings—the last gasp of the Oxford Movement—prompted some people to convert to Roman Catholicism. Although the secularization thesis has had a tenacious grip on twentieth-century literary studies, it does not account for the flare-up of interest in religion in mid-century Britain. The ecumenical movement, which began in the 1930s in Europe, went into suspension during the war, and returned with vigour after 1945, advocated international collaboration among Christian denominations and consequently overlapped with the promotion of human rights, especially the defence of freedom of worship, the right to privacy, freedom of conscience, and freedom of expression.


Author(s):  
Sophy Baird

Children are afforded a number of protections when they encounter the criminal justice system. The need for special protection stems from the vulnerable position children occupy in society. When children form part of the criminal justice system, either by being an offender, victim, or witness, they may be subjected to harm. To mitigate against the potential harm that may be caused, our law provides that criminal proceedings involving children should not be open to the public, subject to the discretion of the court. This protection naturally seems at odds with the principle of open justice. However, the courts have reconciled the limitation with the legal purpose it serves. For all the protection and the lengths that the law goes to protect the identity of children in this regard, it appears there is an unofficial timer dictating when this protection should end. The media have been at the forefront of this conundrum to the extent that they believe that once a child (offender, victim, or witness) turns 18 years old, they are free to reveal the child's identity. This belief, grounded in the right to freedom of expression and the principle of open justice, is at odds with the principle of child's best interests, right to dignity and the right to privacy. It also stares incredulously in the face of the aims of the Child Justice Act and the principles of restorative justice. Measured against the detrimental psychological effects experienced by child victims, witnesses, and offenders, this article aims to critically analyse the legal and practical implications of revealing the identity of child victims, witnesses, and offenders after they turn 18 years old.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew N. Liaropoulos

The cyber security discourse is dominated by states and corporations that focus on the protection of critical information infrastructure and databases. The priority is the security of information systems and networks, rather than the protection of connected users. The dominance of war metaphors in the cyber security debates has produced a security dilemma, which is not sufficiently addressing the needs of people. This article underlines this shortcoming and views cyber security through a human-centric perspective. Freedom of expression and the right to privacy are under attack in the era of cyber surveillance. From a human-centric perspective such rights should be understood as a critical part of cyber security. Human rights protections need to be effectively addressed in the digital sphere and gain their place in the cyber security agendas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 1023-1042
Author(s):  
Ljiljana Mijović

Internet as a means of communication, whatever the type of information it might be used for, falls within the exercise of the right to freedom of expression, as guaranteed by Article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. As established in the European Court's case law, freedom of expression constitutes one of the essentials of a democratic society, therefore limitations on that freedom foreseen in Article 10 § 2 of the Convention are to be interpreted strictly. In order to ensure effective protection of one's freedom of expression on the Internet, States bear a positive obligation to create an appropriate regulatory framework, balancing the right to freedom of expression on one and the limitations prescribed in Article 10 § 2, on the other hand. Special attention in doing so is to be paid to the risk of harm posed by content and communications on the Internet to the exercise and enjoyment of other human rights and freedoms guaranteed by the European Convention, particularly the right to respect for private life. While it is the fact that the electronic network, serving billions of users worldwide, will never be subject to the same regulations and control, because of the national authorities' margin of appreciation, the European Court established commonly applicable general principles regarding the Internet as a media of exercising right to freedom of expression.


2020 ◽  
pp. 132-145
Author(s):  
Shahin Mammadrzali

It is indicated in the article that emerging information technologies influences human rights norms in any democratic society. Especially, the Internet has changed the traditional approach to methods of ensuring human rights, while adding new challenges at the same time, such as regulating cybersecurity, digital data protection, digital freedom of information, privacy, discrimination in the Internet, etc. The traditional flow of information through newspapers, radio and television is currently combined with new means of exchanging digital information, mobile and satellite communications, the Internet and other technological advances. Of course, these innovations make governments to review traditional human rights legislation to stay fit and updated. Yet, some fundamental norms of national human rights legislation should remain unchangeable. Simply put, it looks like Captain America from the movie “Avengers” – a very old guy who develops his abilities to defeat dangers, but also preserves “old school” strength and leadership skills. In the light of these issues, the present article is devoted to the analysis of the conceptual foundations of national legislation in Azerbaijan on the protection of digital rights in the Internet. The article emphasizes that digital rights themselves are one of the factors demonstrating the strong impact of communication technologies on human rights, especially information rights and freedom of expression.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 179-190
Author(s):  
Everson Alexandre de Assumpção

This scientific article was based on a case study, judged by the Argentine Supreme Court. In this process, the author filed a civil action in the civil court to compensate the damage against the authors, understanding that the right to privacy, privacy, honor and image rights were violated. The article sought to analyze the collision of principles, rules, rights and jurisprudence that led the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to rule in favor of Jorge Fontevecchia and Heitor D’amico. These were condemned by the Argentine State for understanding that there was a violation of the Right to Privacy. However, the international court decided to revoke the judgment passed and judged by the Supreme Court of the Argentine Nation, understanding that Fontevechia and D’amigo did not violate the Right to Freedom of Expression, making the action illegal and, therefore, forcing the Argentine State to withdraw the action and also to promote the due reparation of the damages caused to the. On February 14, 2017, the Argentine State rejected the decision of the Inter-American Court, transforming this case into one of the most famous “leading cases” of Argentine international public law. Finally, on October 18, 2017, the International Court issued another resolution to render the sentence in the Fontevecchia y D’Amico case ineffective. It was concluded, therefore, that even with the Argentine constitutional reform of 1994 and the granting of a constitutional hierarchy to international human rights standards, it was defined that the rules of international treaties “do not derogate from the provisions of the first part of the Argentine Constitution” under the terms of article 75, item 22, but attributed to the international treaties a character of complementarity, in addition to the prohibition, provided for in article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, to invoke reasons of domestic law for non-compliance in order to comply with international obligations. For the preparation of this scientific article, the deductive method and qualitative and descriptive research were used. As bibliographic references were used published materials, scientific literature, Law and Jurisprudence that were relevant to the purposes discussed here.


Author(s):  
Jamal Barafi ◽  
Ali Hadi Al-Obeidi

Abstract The development of the Internet and mass media has facilitated access to information and freedom of expression in unprecedented ways, but in so doing there have been many violations, especially of the right to privacy. Such violations have led to calls for the establishment of the right to be forgotten. In this paper, we focus on clarifying the concept of the right to be forgotten and the conditions for establishing this. Moreover, we consider the European approach to the right to be forgotten (RTBF), showing how different European instruments have been employed to recognize this right, such as recommendations, regulations, and directives, in order to coordinate national efforts on this issue. In addition, this paper will analyze the stance of some national Arabic legislation regarding the RTBF.


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