Geneva: United Nations on Wednesday warns that public and private actors intervene in online content in a way that limits the rights and criticism of the muzzle.
“You see a digital world that is not friendly and often insecure for people who try to run their rights,” Peggy Hicks said from the UN Rights Office in Geneva.
“You also see a number of government responses and companies that are at risk of making the situation worse,” he told the press direction.
According to a calculation by agency, 40 new laws that regulate social media have been adopted throughout the world in the past two years, with 30 more examinations.
“Almost every country that has adopted laws relating to online content has endangered human rights in doing so,” he said.
In response to public pressure to regulate online content, “some governments see such laws as a way of limiting speeches that they don’t like and even silence civil society and critics,” Hicks said.
“We can, and must, make internet safer places, but there is no need to sacrifice fundamental rights,” he said.
He said the problem of “Overbroad or undefined language” crossed the ideological line, from Vietnam to Australia, and Bangladesh to Singapore.
Hicks underlines “The importance of critical adopting a human rights-based approach to deal with these challenges,” added: “We need to sound hard and persistent alarms, given the tendency of defective regulations for cloning, and bad practices to develop.” Hicks demanded a call in England for strict regulations in response to online racist attacks on three Black England players who missed a sentence in the Euro 2020 Final Sunday.
Also in the briefing was UN human rights officer Marcelo Daher, who urged that “actual people – not algorithms – review complex decisions.”
Social media regulations threaten rights, the United Nations warns
