Read the original article: Internet Governance and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Part 6: Articles 18-19
Articles 18-19: Freedoms of Thought and Opinion. Co-authored by Klaus Stoll and Prof Sam Lanfranco.1
Internet Governance, like all governance, needs guiding principles from which policy making, and acceptable behavior, are derived. Identifying the fundamental principles to guide Internet ecosystem policy making around digital citizenship, and around the integrity of digital practices and behavior, can and should start with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, (UDHR). The UDHR was embraced after World War II to protect the rights of persons in literal space. We are now facing the same challenge regarding digital space.
Our discussion now explores UDHR Articles 18 and 19. The UDHR principles guiding human rights in literal time and space serve as a starting point for the necessary principles guiding digital rights in the Internet ecosystem.2 Here, in addition to dealing with the freedom of thought and opinion in cyberspace, we explore some aspects of the development of Internet Governance and the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.3
Article 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.4
Article 18 in the UDHR, with its emphasis on religion and belief, was heavily influenced by the terrible events of the inter-war years in the first half of the Twentieth Century. Article 19 generalizes the concerns and principles found in Article 18, and ends with the prophetic words, for the Internet age: “…to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Our discussions have explored the relationship between the UDHR and the social and political structures of countries, nations, and states. Articles 18 and 19 focus greater attention on the role, and rights, of the individual. Freedom of thought and opinion are essential to protect the autonomy of the individual from demands by the state, and for informing the state of the wishes of its citizens.
The actions of an individual can be put into three legal categories: prohibited, permitted, or required. Articles 18-19 put freedom of thought and opinion firmly into the permitted category and limit the ability of a state to prohibit or require them. However, issues formal or behavioral restraint arise when expressed opinion is contrary to other principles in the UDHR, for example supporting racism, patrimony, and other forms of discrimination, and growing issue of the circulation of false information on digital platforms.
Manifestation of the Intangible
Article 18 protects not only thought, conscience and religion but also its manifestations by an individual or a group. Any attempts to prohibit them or require conformity are either illegal, or permissible only then the rights of others are affected.4 Thoughts, beliefs, religion, and digital data, are intangibles. They become real through their manifestations as actions and through social behaviors and institutional structures and processes. We encounter once again the principle of separate but inseparable as discussed in part 1 of this series on the UDHR.
Freedom of Thought does not mean the Freedom to Think for Others
Bertrand Russell reflected on freedom of thought:
“What makes a freethinker is not his beliefs but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought he finds a balance of evidence in their favor, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem.”6
One’s thinking will always be exposed to outside influences, but it should not mirror those influences. It should be like a light that goes through a prism, to be split into its components, for critical evaluation based on dialogue with others. Dialogue is necessary to determine how my thought affects the rights of others, and to reach a consensus over how my thought can manifest itself in behavior without doing harm.
Free thought cannot not exist when the information/data on which it is based is corrupted by misinformation. Historically misinformation, or lack of information, stemmed from censorship, repression, or lack of access. Today, with ease of access and speed of dissemination, this problem is compounded by the of rumors, false news, and false facts through the Internet ecosystem. This prevents, or even perverts, dialogue-based evaluation, and the building of a common consensus.
Thought Leadership
Thought needs the ability to discover the new, to cross boundaries and be shared without fear of reprisal. Freedom of thought is the basis of innovation and has been as a key driver of progress in the digital age. However, the digital venue opens the double-edged sword of so-called thought leadership driven by social media “influencer” thought leaders, influencing both opinions and behavior.7
We cannot subjugate our freedom of thought to the opinions of others, especially when in uncritical support for technical or social innovation. We cannot bow to a leadership that postulates the superiority of one thought over another, independent of evidence, logic, and morality, or thought that demands acceptance without accountability. Innovation with integrity is hampered by leadership when that leadership seeks to preserve and strengthen special interests, frequently at the expense of human rights and wellbeing.
A sign of true innovation and leadership with integrity is that it enables and nurtures the processes of free thought, evaluation, dialogue, and consensus. These four steps are integral to the process of sound Internet Governance policy making.
Independent Judiciary
The UDHR envisaged competent tribunals as an important checks and balances.8 As history has shown, factions within states pursuing self-preservation and advancing their empowerment frequently restrict the abilities of national tribunals. Hence, in cases such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, such tribunals have been established above and beyond the state.9
To exercise free thought and its manifestations in cyberspace requires, as discussed in part 3 of this series, recognition without discrimination and the absence of arbitrary means of repression or presumption of guilt. This freedom can only be secured within Internet Governance when that governance is created and maintained by empowered engagement from all its digital citizen stakeholders.10
States have their own jurisdiction and sovereignty and will exercise control over domestic Internet Governance. Much like domestic human rights governance, based on the principles of the UDHR, those policies and behaviors should respect the principles behind global digital rights. There will never be a global cyberstate in the sense of an independent digital state with sovereignty over its digital territory. But the digital rights of empowered digital citizens require the principles a global universal declaration of digital rights, backed by an international judiciary, empowered by signature states, and operating with its own jurisdictional independence. This is where the separately but inseparable overlap. Stakeholder engagement in global dialogue, as well as dialogue within existing national and international bodies, is necessary to agree upon the principles and mechanisms for international agreements around the rights (and obligations) of digital citizenship, to establish appropriate judiciary institutions and processes, and to inform behavioral integrity.
Freedom of Conscience
The right to freedom of conscience protects an individual from being forced or coerced into participation in an activity that is against his/her values. When accessing a service, nobody should be arbitrarily refused, or forced to give unwilling consent, or be subjected to discrimination. This is a pressing issue when it comes to required consent to the terms of agreement for access to many of the services, apps, and activities confronting a digital citizen in the Internet ecosystem.
Many digital applications, some of them vital for the exercise of our empowered digital citizenship, are only available after agreeing to term and conditions that are contrary to the users’ interests and rights. Digital technologies and the terms under which they can be used need to conform with basic human rights, expressed as basic digital rights. Coercing individuals to sacrifice or compromise their human and digital rights through denial of services, for example through unreasonable “legal” consent forms, and the failure to fully disclose the true uses of personal data, are unethical and comparable to giving a person the choice to opt in to slavery, or starve.11 Universal Internet access should be a fundamental right, and not be subject to questionable constraints on personal rights and freedoms, or digital date use practices of questionable integrity.
Freedom of Religion, Preserving the Unity of Body and Mind
Does freedom of religion, as manifested and exercised in Cyberspace, present special problems? Does it require special rights and protections? Religion is an attempt to join the separate but inseparable nature of the human mind and body, the so-called mind-body problem.12 How does my physical body relate to my religion based (virtual) being? Building the links between the virtual and the physical is key to the security and self-preservation of one’s personhood. One’s virtual “residence” in the Internet ecosystem poses similar questions.
Religion, at is core, is virtual, with “residency” within a belief space. For believers that belief space is true. Non-believers express doubt or disbelief. Religion and philosophy provide rationales and rituals to satisfy multiple personal and societal needs. Believers and non-believers both understand that religion’s impact on literal life is real. One’s virtual residence within the Internet ecosystem has a same virtual-to-real personal and societal relationship.
Challenging a person’s religious believe system equates to questioning a believer’s being in mind and body. Since the origins of religious communities, threats and exhortations by religious leaders have driven followers to believe that extreme acts such as crusades, witch hunts and terrorism are necessary and justified. This “thought fascism” allows for multiple terrible means to be deployed to attack religious beliefs and persecute those who hold them, when those beliefs different from one’s own, as was witnessed in the middle of the past Century.
The UDHR puts religion on a same level as thought and conscience, and reaffirms the right of a believer to hold and “to change his[her] religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance”. The core principle here can be applied to the notion, and protection of thoughts and behavior within one’s digital residency.
Capitalism and Technological Thought Fascism
At the start of the 21st Century Capitalism is under the microscope. The recent era of neoliberal (pro-market) policy has produced major technological and economic advances. At the same time, it has produced extreme concentrations of income and wealth, and increased marginalization. These outcomes are prompting serious reflection on whether market capitalism can be reformed, or needs to be replaced, with no clear idea of how to reform, or replace with what.
Belief systems satisfy our need for physical and spiritual wholeness, acting as personal “global positioning systems”, and provide comfort and security. They also help weave the fabric of society. The role of capitalism, as a technology driver within that fabric is evident. However, its impacts in the rapid development of the Internet ecosystem are driving calls for a critical review of its socio-economic impacts and the integrity of its digital business practices.
One area of particular concern is Surveillance Capitalism. Surveillance capitalism is the newly emergent digital business practice of collecting and monetizing identifiable personal digital data. This raises issues about the integrity of digital data use practices and how they relate to the digital and literal rights of persons. Processing digital data for marketing goods and services, and for feeding information (valid or false) risks the uses of digital technology in the service of thought fascism. Such risks are not new. They arose with the printing press, with radio and with film and television. The risks to human rights posed by such practices in cyberspace are greater today given the scope, scale and speed with which information can flow on the Internet. There may be reasons, and hope, to believe that humankind will be able to deal with this threat:
“…[a] careful final summary indicates commercialism as the great danger to future free thought; but it seems legitimate to hope that the great economic interests bound up with science, together with the spread of education, will prevent any return to the more noxious superstitions of the past.”13
While one might passively hope for principled outcomes with integrity, it is better to work on identifying principles and formulating policy through engagement by an empowered digital citizenry.
Freedom of Thought, Firmly Held Opinions, and Internet Governance
To exercise freedom of thought in Cyberspace requires an understanding, almost a paradigm shift, and think about one’s “residency” in the Internet ecosystem. One must think not only of digital rights but also of digital duties (obligations) as a citizen of the internet. As in the case of one’s literal citizenship, duties evolve and become part of the social fabric. Most are not mandated or handed down in policies and regulations but develop as social conventions. Personally, lying or spreading false rumors are frowned on. Politically, voting is an act of good citizenship, but usually it is not required.
Expressed opinions, as a contribution to dialogue and consensus should not contain falsehoods or blatant lapses in logic. Frequently they do not face legal sanctions when they occur. This is a difficult area today regarding social media, where falsehoods are widely circulated, both innocently and with malicious intent. Any system of governance, including Internet Governance, relies on a dynamic blend of binding policies and generally mutually agreed upon individual and private behaviors. Opinions should be contributions to dialogue where common wisdom says: “One is entitled to one’s own opinion but not one’s own f
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Read the original article: Internet Governance and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Part 6: Articles 18-19