Meaning of a Global Perspective

“The Internet was designed to be a kind of free-speech paradise, but it has also been used to incite violence, spread lies, and promote hate. Over the years, three American behemoths – Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter – became the way many people around the world experience the Internet, and therefore act as the conveyors of some of its most disturbing material. Who should decide whether content should be removed from platforms, or which users should be kicked off? Should the giant social media platforms police the content themselves, as is the norm in the U.S., or should governments and international organizations regulate the Internet, as many are demanding in Europe? How do we keep from helping authoritarian regimes to censor all criticisms of themselves? David Kaye is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, the global body’s principal monitor for freedom of expression issues worldwide. He is also a clinical professor of law and the director of the International Justice Clinic at the University of California, Irvine.”

This report has been supported by the TrialWatch program at the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute. TrialWatch is an initiative by the Clooney Foundation for Justice which advocates for justice through accountability for human rights abuses around the world. This report looks at the movement to change sedition laws, the reasons for such change and the abuses that continue where changes are attempted. The report is in three parts: a brief overview of the sedition laws at their criticisms faced at different levels; an update on the progress made by the Commonwealth States to reform these laws and lastly, an overview of examples where prosecuted have used sedition laws to stifle dissent, including case studies by TrialWatch's monitoring. 

“This study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the LIBE Committee, aims at finding the balance between regulatory measures to tackle disinformation and the protection of freedom of expression. It explores the European legal framework and analyses the roles of all stakeholders in the information landscape. The study offers recommendations to reform the attention-based, data-driven information landscape and regulate platforms’ rights and duties relating to content moderation.” 

As the American Humanist Association noted while launching the 10th Annual Freedom of Thought Report, “The 2021 Freedom of Thought report details the risks faced by nonreligious individuals around the world. The focus is on state-imposed discrimination, defined as systemic, legal, or official forms of restrictions on freedom of thought, belief, and expression. The report sharply criticizes Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, as well as other countries, for grave violations against the rights of nonreligious people, including the enforcement of blasphemy laws, religious or ideological indoctrination in schools, and more. The 2021 report includes consideration of recent developments in Myanmar and Uruguay as well.”

“The Global Expression Report is a global, data-informed, annual look at freedom of expression worldwide. With the benefit of data and hindsight, we take a look at 2020 – how this fundamental right fared, what the key trends were, and how global events affected its exercise. The Global Expression Report’s metric (the GxR Metric) tracks freedom of expression across the world. In 161 countries, 25 indicators were used to create an overall freedom of expression score for every country, on a scale of 1 to 100 which places it in an expression category. The GxR reflects not only the rights of journalists and civil society but also how much space there is for each of us – as individuals and members of organisations – to express and communicate; how free each and every person is to post online, to march, to research, and to access the information we need to participate in society and hold those with power to account. This report covers expression’s many faces: from street protest to social media posts; from the right to information to the right to express political dissent, organise, offend, or make jokes. It also looks at the right to express without fear of harassment, legal repercussions, or violence.”

“Around the world, disinformation is spreading and becoming a more complex phenomenon based on emerging techniques of deception. 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 rights 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.”

“To what extent do structures and conduct of leading news media correspond with requirements of contemporary democracies? Based on a root concept of democracy and several empirical indicators, the Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM) delivers a panorama of the news media’s performance regarding freedom, equality, and control across several countries. In 2011, the MDM analysed 10 democracies. Ten years later, it covers 18 countries worldwide and pinpoints essential strengths and weaknesses during this decade of digitalisation. Around the globe, news [is] highly attractive to users, and the journalistic ethos of watchdogs and investigators is paramount. On the downside, journalistic job security eroded over time, and gender gaps both in content and employment patterns remain strikingly excessive in most countries. Volume one contains countries present in the 2011 MDM edition, allowing for longitudinal comparative analysis: Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Volume two contains all countries analysed for the first time in 2021: Belgium (Flanders), Canada, Chile, Denmark, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Italy, and South Korea.”

“In the State of Artistic Freedom report – a research publication produced annually – Freemuse provides an analytical examination of violations to the right to freedom of artistic expression documented through 2020 and present some of the most prevailing restrictions. This report is based on the analyses of 978 incidents where this right was violated, documented in 89 countries and online. In addition to statistical data, Freemuse also utilises qualitative interviews with 70 artists and relevant experts, providing personal experiences, reflections and insights about the limitations put on artistic freedom. Aiming to illustrate varying problems and obstacles artists face in different parts of the world, Freemuse also provides analysis of the state of artistic freedoms in 15 countries: Bangladesh, Belarus, Brazil, China, Cuba, Egypt, India, Iran, Kenya, Kuwait, Nigeria, Russia, Turkey, Uganda, and the United States of America. The report demonstrates that although artistic expression has been under attack by different actors (including political and religious groups, social media platforms and private individuals), different government authorities instigated violations in 60 percent of documented cases. This data illustrates that governments and state-funded bodies remain the biggest threat to artistic expression, as well as that nationalist and populist authorities stay determined to silence varying ways of voicing political dissent.”