Internet universality

The Internet is becoming so significant in everyday life, work and identity in much of the world, that it is increasingly difficult to distinguish human rights on and off the Internet.[2] UNESCO and the United Nations more broadly have affirmed the principle of human rights should apply to all aspects of the Internet.[10] This would include, for example, freedom of expression, and privacy. UNESCO considers that as these two rights should also apply to the Internet, so should other rights, such as cultural diversity, gender equality, and education. As human rights are indivisible, for UNESCO all these rights mentioned above also need to be balanced with rights that apply to both digital and extra-digital life.[2]

This general principle, applied to the Internet, encompasses open global standards, interoperability, open application interfaces, and open science, documents, text, data, and flows. Social and political support for open systems, not only technical expertise, is part of this principle. Transparency is part of openness, as well as a dimension of the rights to seek and receive information. Making rights and openness are interdependent.[2]

There is special relevance to the Internet of the broader principle of social inclusion. This puts forward the role of accessibility in overcoming digital divides, digital inequalities, and exclusions based on skills, literacy, language, gender or disability. It also points to the need for sustainable business models for Internet activity, and to trust in the preservation, quality, integrity, security, and authenticity of information and knowledge. Accessibility is interlinked to rights and openness.[2]

The general principle of participation in decision-making that impacts on the lives of individuals has been part of the Internet from its outset, accounting for much of its success.[11] It recognizes the value of multistakeholder participation, incorporating users and a user-centric perspective as well as all other actors critical to developing, using and governing the Internet across a range of levels. The other principles are enriched by the multistakeholder participation principle, because it states that everyone should have a stake in the future of the Internet.

It is possible to define a number of broad categories of stakeholders in the Internet, with subgroups as well: State, businesses and industries, non-governmental actors, civil society, international governmental organization, research actors, individuals, and others. Each of these categories has more or less unique stakes in the future of the Internet, but there are also areas of great overlap and interdependence. For instance, some NGOs, are likely to prioritize the promotion of human rights; meanwhile parliaments are primary actors in defining laws to protect these rights. Still other stakeholders are key to shaping rights online, such as search engine providers, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs).[12] Individuals also have particular roles to play in respecting, promoting and protecting rights.[2]

Aside from the four main factors (R-O-A-M), UNESCO has also identified five different cross-cutting factors that will suit all of the R-O-A-M factors, and should be taken into consideration. Of the five, two of them are concerned with gender and age equality, one is concerned with sustainable development (i.e. what part does the internet play in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals developed by the UN), the fourth is concerned with internet trust and security, and the last is concerned with legal and ethical properties of the internet.[13]

Access to information and knowledge encompasses the vision of universal access, not only to the Internet, but also to the ability to seek and receive open scientific, indigenous, and traditional knowledge online, and also produce content in all forms. This requires initiatives for freedom of information and the building of open and preserved knowledge resources, as well as a respect for cultural and linguistic diversity that fosters local content in multiple languages, quality educational opportunities for all, including new media literacy and skills, and social inclusion online, including addressing inequalities based on income, skills, education, gender, age, race, ethnicity, or accessibility by those with disabilities.[16][17][2]

Freedom of expression entails the ability to safely express one's views over the Internet, ranging from the rights of Internet users to freedom of expression online, through to press freedom and the safety of journalists, bloggers and human rights advocates, along with policies that enhance an open exchange of views and a respect for the rights of free online expression. Privacy refers broadly to Internet practices and policies that respect the rights of individuals to have a reasonable expectation of having a personal space, and to control access to their personal information. Privacy, therefore, allows individuals to freely express their ideas without fear of reprisals.[2]

Privacy protection is however a tricky concept that goes together with the promotion of openness and transparency and a recognition that privacy and its protection underpins freedom of expression and trust in the Internet, and therefore its greater use for social and economic development.[2]

Ethics considers whether the norms, rules and procedures that govern online behavior and the design of the Internet and related digital media are based on ethical principles anchored in human rights based principles and geared to protecting the dignity and safety of individuals in cyberspace and advance accessibility, openness, and inclusiveness on the Internet. For example, Internet use should be sensitive to ethical considerations, such as non-discrimination on the basis of gender, age or disabilities; and shaped by ethics rather than used to retrospectively justify practices and policies, placing a focus on the intentionality of actions, as well as on the outcomes of Internet policies and practices.[2]

As digital media have been a force behind the convergence of formerly more distinct technologies of the post, telephone, and mass media, so policy and regulation have often failed to keep up, as we can see with the lack of a clear and unified regulation policy used by social media. This has left potentially inappropriate regulations in place and failed to integrate new solutions such as Media and information literacy. A worldwide ecology of policies and regulations is shaping the interrelated local and global outcomes of the Internet on access to information and knowledge, freedom of expression, privacy and ethics. [18] [19] [20] And such policy choices are being considered by a multiplicity of actors at all levels for all are concerned that the policies and practices governing the Internet could undermine principles and purposes they view as fundamental, whether those values are centered on freedom of expression, the privacy of personal information, or ethical conduct, and whether the implications are perceived to be immediate or long term.[2]

Blocking and filtering of content regulation are common areas of concern for NGO's and International Organizations, such as UNESCO. These measures restrict in a direct way citizens’ rights to impart information and opinion, as well as impacting adversely on their rights to access online content. In many cases, users might not realize that content has been filtered or blocked. There was some recognition that alongside censorship as a violation of free expression, there is also legitimate reason in some contexts to block certain content, such as material that incites violence. This raises the question of how to draw the line in specific cases about what to block, for how long, in what proportion, and with what transparency and redress mechanism.[lower-alpha 2]

Another issue is the danger of holding intermediaries liable as if they were publishers — for example, making social media platforms responsible for an alleged case of hate speech. International standards of human rights law mean that removal, blockage or filtering of Internet content should be the exception to the norm of free flow of information, and that such actions fulfill the conditions of due purpose, necessity, proportionality, and transparency, and are authorized under relevant law and policy.[2] Furthermore, multiple actors, including individual users can identify instances of censorship and expose these cases to the court of public opinion. In such ways, the Internet has the potential for enabling individual Internet users to hold institutions and other users more accountable for their actions online, creating what has been called a ‘Fifth Estate’, analogous to the Fourth Estate of the press, but potentially even more powerful.[22] A Fifth Estate does require a relatively free and open Internet to be sustainable and influential.[2]

Governments or commercial enterprises have the ability to target individual users, putting their privacy in danger, given that they will know much about their interests through their search or other online activities. Individual users of social media platforms can advertise to others who are interested in particular topics. This can appear more as a violation of privacy then the exercise of free speech. A related issue is the ‘filter bubble’:[23] the idea that different Internet users will see different versions of the Internet, based on how algorithms use their previous search or social media preferences. User targeting can happen at the level of the government, private companies, or even at the infrastructural level.[2]

The dependence of freedom of expression on related issues of privacy, anonymity, and encryption that face an apparent resistance to change.[2]

Anonymity can be a cornerstone of privacy; it is considered as a prerequisite for the expression of unpopular or critical speech. Anonymity is sometimes viewed as contributing to harmful speech, such as hate speech, which goes beyond international standards of human rights law for protected speech. Despite this perception, academic research has not established that removing anonymity and requiring the identification of speakers would be a cure to insensitive or hurtful remarks. These incivilities are often fostered by a larger set of circumstances, such as a failure of users sitting at a computer to fully realize that they are communicating with a real person. Anonymity may also impact on public debate online. In some countries, participants would refrain from participating (for instance on the issue of gay rights or domestic abuse) for fear of identification and persecution. Anonymity in cyber-attacks, including fake domain attacks impersonating civil society, is a serious violation of free expression.[2]

Data protection can be critical to free expression. Increasing government surveillance of citizens, including through the collection and analysis of ‘big data’, is leading to an erosion of the citizens' rights to privacy and freedom of expression. A report of the former UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression states that, bulk access to all digital communications traffic eradicates the possibility of individualized proportionality analysis, because it pre-empts prior authorization based on specific targeted suspicion. [24] The role of mass surveillance potentials and the use of big data analytics could change the balance between the state and individuals. Whistleblower, such as Edward Snowden, helped identifying the mass surveillance of communications metadata, as a disproportionate response in relation to the security problem. Concern were also expressed during the ‘CONNECTing the dots’ conference about surveillance tools, originally built to address severe crimes, being used to collect personal information about dissidents, or sometimes from all citizens. Further concerns were over weak transparency on how data is collected or used for security investigations. Manipulation of security practices such as the introduction of ‘back doors’ into software, to allow legitimate government access can leave Internet users vulnerable to other, illegitimate threats. Attackers can potentially get in through the same back doors, rendering systems less secure.[2]

There are a certain number of obstacles in maintaining and promoting the rights to freedom of expression via regulation and regulatory frameworks. Due to its globalized and borderless nature, the Internet can be seen as inherently unregulated. There is, for example, a difficulty in establishing effective state-based regulation in a world where content can be hosted and accessed from entirely different countries, leading to regulation becoming obsolete. Striking the correct regulatory balance is difficult, as over- or inappropriate regulation can have negative consequences not only for freedom of expression but for the value of the Internet in general. UNESCO considers that governments role is not to restrict freedoms, but rather to ensure that fundamental human rights — including communication-related rights — are protected. Paradoxically, a lack of regulation could be a detriment to the public interest. Internet-specific laws to protect freedom of expression could then be justified, since the Internet is so very different from any of the traditional media.[2]