"This text is divided into four chapters. The first chapter describes the characteristics of online public debate in Colombia. It also presents the historical context and details the circumstances in which risky content for democracy and human rights content is published and disseminated in the coun
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try; this usually happens in public discussions associated with the armed conflict, in debates related to current situations that involve discriminated and vulnerable communities, and —mainly— during electoral periods in which smear campaigns against the media and journalists occur and disinformation strategies to manipulate voters develop. The second chapter presents a normative review that clarifies concepts addressed throughout the text and elaborates on international standards on the subject. The third chapter contains the body of the legal framework that describes the current regulations in Colombia to address content that potentially poses risks for democracy and human rights and presents the alternatives for dealing with such content. The fourth chapter analyzes the extent to which this framework is in line with international standards and reflects on the effectiveness of the legal tools to tackle the problem of hate speech and disinformation. In parallel with the development of the conflict and cycles of political violence, Colombian civil society has been striving for decades to advance in peacebuilding. As part of these efforts, it is essential to understand how to promote a broad and robust conversation in digital environments that guarantees diversity of opinions and protects the right of citizens to receive truthful and unbiased information." (Page 5)
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"This study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the LIBE Committee, examines risks that contemporary social media - focusing in particular on the most widely-used platforms - present for democracy, the rul
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e of law and fundamental rights. The study focuses on the governance of online content, provides an assessment of existing EU law and industry practices which address these risks, and evaluates potential opportunities and risks to fundamental rights and other democratic values." (Abstract)
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"The three countries [Bosnia and Herzegovina, Indonesia, and Kenya] provide evidence of online hate speech and disinformation affecting human rights offline. The evidence is not comprehensive yet clear enough to raise serious concerns. Online gender-based violence is also reported as critical in the
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three countries. In the three countries, national legislation to address harmful content shows some degree of inconsistency in comparison to international standards, notably in relation to the protection of freedom of expression. The reasons for such inconsistency vary among countries. The effective enforcement of legal frameworks is uneven in all three countries. Social and cultural inequalities are often reproduced in government or judicial decisions, and vagueness in legislation opens space for discretionary decisions. Platform companies have offices in Indonesia and Kenya, but not in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the three countries, there is a lack of transparency in how companies allocate the roles of moderation tasks, including the number of different language moderators and their trusted partners and sources. Companies do not process content moderation in some of the main local languages and community standards are not entirely or promptly available in local languages." (Executive summary)
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"The proliferation of hate speech and disinformation on online platforms has serious implications for human rights, trust and safety as per international human rights law and standards. The mutually-reinforcing determinants of the problems are: ‘attention economics’; automated advertising system
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s; external manipulators; company spending priorities; stakeholder knowledge deficits; and flaws in platforms’ policies and in their implementation. How platforms understand and identify harms is insufficiently mapped to human rights standards, and there is a gap in how generic policy elements should deal with local cases, different rights and business models when there are tensions. Enforcement by platforms of their own terms of service to date has grave shortfalls, while attempts to improve outcomes by automating moderation have their limitations. Inequalities in policy and practice abound in relation to different categories of people, countries and languages, while technology advances are raising even more challenges. Problems of ‘solo-regulation’ by individual platforms in content curation and moderation are paralleled by harms associated with unilateral state regulation. Many countries have laws governing content online, but their vagueness fuels arbitrary measures by both authorities and platforms. Hybrid regulatory arrangements can help by elaborating transparency requirements, and setting standards for mandatory human rights impact assessments." (Key messages)
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"This report details the legal framework / rule of law tools in place, and responses by the government, social media companies, and civil society to address illegal harmful content and potentially harmful content online in Kenya. This research draws from 13 interviews with people active in Kenya's g
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overnment and civil society, along with four workshops held in Nairobi, Kisumu, and Mombasa counties. The workshops attracted the participation of 105 actors and stakeholders from civil society, community-based organizations, technology companies, and representatives from line ministries and agencies in government. It also draws from trends gathered from Build Up' social media listening process, along with existing research, legislation, policies, and current events. The social media listening process focused on Twitter and Facebook, from 2017 to 2022, focusing on ethnic, political, and gender-based hateful narratives and peace messaging in the run-up to the next election cycle in August 2022. The literature review and interviews focused on existing legislation or company policies that address hate speech and misinformation, along with actions taken by government agencies, civil society, and technology companies to address related hate speech and misinformation narratives." (Introduction, page 1 & Methodology, page 5)
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"In this chapter, international, regional and State-level legal and normative frameworks for responding to online violence against women journalists are examined, while exemplar judgements are catalogued, and gaps in law enforcement are highlighted. Here, insights gleaned from 184 in-depth interview
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s, and responses to the relevant survey questions in the main data corpus are supplemented by relevant examples from other countries, surfaced through extensive desk research. Additionally, the 15 country case studies underpinning the broader study are drawn on to contextualise the discussion." (Pages 4-5)
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"Hate Speech ist Alltag, egal ob auf der Straße, im Parlament oder im Netz. Menschen werden beleidigt, entwürdigt und man ruft zu Gewalt auf. Die Folgen sind unübersehbar. Hate Speech ist so zu einem gesellschaftsbedrohenden Phänomen avanciert, befeuert durch politische und soziale Krisen wie di
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e Flüchtlingskrise 2015/16 und die Corona-Pandemie 2020/21. Mit diesem Sammelband möchten wir einen Beitrag zu einer strukturierten Reflexion des Phänomens leisten. Dabei werden sprachliche Indikatoren von Hassrede, die Bedeutung von digitaler Kommunikation für Hass und Hetze sowie öffentliche Kommunikation und Hate Speech in der Praxis diskutiert. Ebenso setzt der Band sich mit möglichen politischen, rechtlichen, journalistischen sowie zivilgesellschaftlichen Handlungsoptionen auseinander. Einen besonderen Fokus legen wir dabei auf die journalistische Bearbeitung und digitale Verbreitung von Hate Speech." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"The study specifically focuses on five types of harmful content: a) hate speech and hate narratives; b) denials of war crimes and glorification of war criminals; c) ethno-nationally and/or politically biased media reporting; d) disinformation; and e) attacks, threats and smear campaigns against ind
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ividuals. After giving overviews of the five types of harmful content, their targets and consequences, the following chapters are dedicated to the legislative, regulatory and self-regulatory frameworks for the five types of harmful content, how effectively they are used online, what the major obstacles are in their implementation and to what extent they are aligned with international standards. The study also addresses the practices of the courts, the Communications Regulatory Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Press Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina and other relevant actors in countering harmful content. The final parts of the study are dedicated to the community guidelines of social networks and examples of frameworks in other countries. The scope of harmful content online in Bosnia and Herzegovina is worrying and calls for a comprehensive response. The study emphasizes the need to safeguard freedom of expression and to find responses and practices that are aligned with international human rights law and that do not chill or censor online speech or discourage the flow of diverse sources of information and opinions." (Executive summary)
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"Platforms have power. But this power is not unchecked. Governments have an important role to play in protecting their citizens' rights vis-à-vis third parties and ensuring a communication order in which rights are not violated. (And in addition, of course, they need to respect human rights themsel
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ves and not arbitrarily shut down sites or use their power to make the Internet less free and open). As leader of working group 2 it is my distinct privilege to present this collection which unites studies by researchers within the Global Digital Human Rights Networks on issues connected to the overarching question of how platforms deal with human rights and their human rights obligations. This study is a key deliverable of our working group in the second year of the Global Digital Human Rights Network's activities. We will follow-up with Guidelines for platforms and an Assessment Model for states and other stakeholders in 2024. We developed this study under Corona conditions but were able to meet in the Tyrolean Alps in Obergurgl, Austria, in July 2022 to finalize this study." (Preface, page 7)
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"Digitale Gewalt kommt nicht nur im öffentlichen Raum vor, sondern auch in privaten Beziehungen – und hat in Kombination mit häuslicher und sexualisierter Gewalt eine deutlich geschlechtsspezifische Komponente. Durch Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien haben Gewaltformen wie Doxing, Sta
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lking, Hate Speech und Online-Belästigung und -Bedrohung stark zugenommen und durch die Nutzung des Internets ihre Wirkmächtigkeit verstärkt. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes liefern für den Umgang mit diesen Gewaltformen grundlegende interdisziplinäre Analysen und diskutieren sowohl juristische, technische und aktivistische Interventionen als auch Erfahrungen aus der Beratungspraxis. Dabei werden zentrale politische Änderungsbedarfe ausgemacht und entsprechende Handlungsoptionen aufgezeigt." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"The Online Regulation Series Handbook provides an analysis of global online regulation, analysing over 60 legislations and regulatory proposals in 17 countries, and their implications for countering terrorist and violent extremist content. The Handbook is based on analysis published throughout Octo
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ber and November 2020 for the first edition of our Online Regulation Series. All country analyses have been updated to reflect recent regulatory changes. For each country, we provide a summary of the regulatory framework and the key takeaways for tech platforms, as well as Tech Against Terrorism’s commentary. The Handbook also includes Tech Against Terrorism’s key recommendations for governments and an analysis of International Human Rights Law as a possible framework for content regulation and governance. With this Handbook we aim to provide a comprehensive and accessible resource for tech platforms to improve their understanding of legislative developments and key trends in online regulation." (Publisher description)
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"Disinformation undermines human rights and many elements of good quality democracy; but counter-disinformation measures can also have a prejudicial impact on human rights and democracy. COVID-19 compounds both these dynamics and has unleashed more intense waves of disinformation, allied to human ri
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ghts and democracy setbacks. Effective responses to disinformation are needed at multiple levels, including formal laws and regulations, corporate measures and civil society action. While the EU has begun to tackle disinformation in its external actions, it has scope to place greater stress on the human rights dimension of this challenge. In doing so, the EU can draw upon best practice examples from around the world that tackle disinformation through a human rights lens. This study proposes steps the EU can take to build counter-disinformation more seamlessly into its global human rights and democracy policies." (Abstract)
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"The euphoria that has accompanied the birth and expansion of the internet as a "liberation technology" is increasingly eclipsed by an explosion of vitriolic language on a global scale. Digital Hate: The Global Conjuncture of Extreme Speech provides the first distinctly global and interdisciplinary
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perspective on hateful language online. Moving beyond Euro-American allegations of 'fake news,' contributors draw attention to local idioms and practices and explore the profound implications for how community is imagined, enacted, and brutally enforced around the world. With a cross-cultural framework nuanced by ethnography and field-based research, the volume investigates a wide range of cases-from anti-immigrant memes targeted at Bolivians in Chile to trolls serving the ruling AK Party in Turkey - to ask how the potential of extreme speech to talk back to authorities has come under attack by diverse forms of digital hate cultures." (Publisher description)
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"For some users the current Internet epoch can be considered the Internet of Hate which poses serious human rights concerns. Reflecting the scale and seriousness of the problem, innovations in governance tools for online hate have been initiated by national governments, intergovernmental organisatio
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ns and Internet intermediaries across Europe in past years. This study maps, explains and critically evaluates these emerging innovations covering three levels: moderation, oversight, and regulatory level. It reviews whether and how these innovations deliver a victim sensitive approach; uphold human rights including freedom of expression and prohibition of discrimination; and fulfil goals, aims, values and expectations of governmental agencies, Internet platforms, civil society organisations and the general public when it comes to the governance of online hate speech. The study identifies 30 indicators that could assess the success or progress of different governance tools for online hate speech and makes many practical recommendations covering ten key areas." (Back cover)
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"En gran parte de América Latina existen normas que buscan regular los actos de discurso, ya sea a través de normativas contra el discurso de odio, o mediante la penalización de los “delitos de honor” (cuyo traslado al ámbito civil y la correspondiente despenalización, dicho sea de paso, es
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tá en mora en gran parte de la región). Resulta dudosa la necesidad de regular el discurso de odio en línea a través de legislación específica que aborde el medio a través del cual se comete, sin haber justificado por qué las normas preexistentes resultan insuficientes para ser análogas al entorno en línea; más aún, resulta preocupante que se regule el discurso de odio en línea a través de normas que consideran que el medio digital debería constituir un agravante, buscando aumentar el tipo y duración de las penas específicamente para las redes sociales." (Conclusiones)
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"The Forum on Information & Democracy proposes a number of policy steps to democratic governments and their supporters. Transparency and accountability need to be shored up and content moderation should be done according to democratic mandates and oversight. The impact of new platforms where disinfo
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rmation can go viral, such as private messenger services, needs to be understood. Through a global democratic coalition, a meaningful alternative should be offered instead of the two dominant models of technology governance: the privatized and the authoritarian. Through the intergovernmental Partnership on Information & Democracy, democratic leaders recognize the information and communication space as a ‘public good’. Now they have to implement their commitments in policies on the national and international level. Our recommendations are designed to shape and support their policy agenda." (Foreword, page 13)
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"The Ethiopian government restricts freedom of expression on the internet and has adopted extraneous limiting measures. Most of these measures are incompatable with the African Charter. Restrictions to freedom of expression on the internet include internet shutdowns, hate speech and disinformation r
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egulation, repressive laws, and internet censorship. These limitations may (in)directly muzzle freedom of expression in Ethiopia. The writer argues that illegitimate limitations of the right fall short of the quadruple tests of limitation measures, both under the African Charter and the Ethiopian Constitution. As a result, these limitations violate individuals’ freedom of expression on the internet. Finally, the article suggests that the Ethiopian government should draw guidance from the African Commission’s 2019 Declaration on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information containing rules on limitation measures imposed on freedom of expression on the internet." (Summary)
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