Internet Censorship Hurts Citizen Participation, Freedom of Expression, Says U.N. Official
Criminalizing the use of the Internet has serious implications for basic human freedoms, said Frank La Rue, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression. The Internet is a tool that enables freedoms and while it can be used for defamation and hate speech, governments around the world should not censor it, he said Wednesday at George Washington University Law School in Washington.
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Every time there is a technological leap, “we have to reaffirm the principles of human rights on which we base freedom of expression,” La Rue said. “I don’t believe that we have to establish … a new set of rights.” Existing principles in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other treaties “are essential for the understanding of these new technologies,” he said.
Some regimes in countries like Mexico and Guatemala use other offenses, like defamation, as excuses for criminalizing freedom of expression online, La Rue said. With the Internet, people can organize, mobilize, and exercise freedom of assembly, he said. “This is why some politicians began getting scared of the effects of the Internet.” Hate speech and defamation cannot be solved by censorship, he said. Defamation “is a concept related to individuals.” Monitoring, filtering and blocking of the Internet also “is being done with many excuses,” he said. Some governments engage in filtering to avoid child pornography. “I believe it’s good to block a website that carries child pornography,” but that in itself is not enough, he said. “The issue is organized crime that deals with children” and a state must investigate and punish those responsible for it.
La Rue raised concerns about the U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act. There should be some form of protection for intellectual property, but some governments have gone too far, he said: “All democracies have to be known by citizen participation, but the most important element of citizen participation is expression.” The day it’s limited for commercial interests, “then you're really losing the nature of your democracy,” he said. La Rue urged democracies, especially ones in the Western world, to set the example for other regimes. “If we're going to challenge the authoritarian rogue regimes, we have to be very clear in our own procedures."
Renewed hate speech creates a new challenge for Internet openness, La Rue said. The Internet is used for cyberbullying, inciting hatred and other social harms, he said. In the case of Holocaust denial sites, “history as anything else is open to debate,” including challenging historical facts. However, law can be applied to hate speech, he said. There will always be dangerous content, “so we should teach children to stay away from it,” La Rue said.
While ISPs and intermediaries shouldn’t be forced to censor sites, companies should have a larger role in promoting online use to foster human rights, La Rue said. Yahoo, Google and Microsoft signed on to the Global Network Initiative, but there should be a lot more corporations, he said. Countries should insist that “there be local human rights initiatives by ISPs.”