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I negotiated this resolution on behalf of a UN government. The title is very misleading. The resolution states that human rights are applicable on the internet
by a_diplomat 9y ago
I negotiated this resolution on behalf of a UN government. The title is very misleading. The resolution states that human rights are applicable on the internet, not that access to the internet is a human right.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y agoCool When are you going to charge Google/Twitter/Facebook/Reddit for banning speech that they don't like on the Internet? Is Free Speech a human right according to UN? Is criticism of religion, or ideology, included in that right?
- a_diplomat 9y ago1) That would be a question for US courts, as all those companies are based in the us. 2) Yes. 3) Yes.
- a_diplomat 9y agohttp://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
- AmIFirstToThink 9y ago> 3) Yes https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/un-adopts-religious-intolerance-resolution-championed-obama-administration https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/un-adopts-religious-int... How should I trust your words now?
- a_diplomat 9y agoFreedom of speech is, as you can read in the link I provided, one of several rights, not the only right.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y agoHow do you reconcile Freedom of Speech allowed and “defamation of religion” not being allowed?
- burkaman 9y agohttp://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/16session/A.HRC.RES.16.18_en.pdf http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/16sessio... This is a resolution passed by the Human Rights Council, but it is not a human right. It does not disallow anything. It talks about promoting and encouraging respect, deploring discrimination and violence, noting concern, recognizing contributions, etc. These are all soft, non-binding commitments. The only actual obligation is "to prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion or belief and to implement measures to guarantee the equal and effective protection of the law", which does not conflict at all with freedom of speech. It also includes "the positive role that the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the full respect for the freedom to seek, receive and impart information can play in strengthening democracy and combating religious intolerance", which seems to address your concerns.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y agoLiving, breathing, People deserve respect. Ideas don't. I have seen many cases of criticism of religion equated with criticism of every person who happen to be tagged as person of that religion, and used as a reason to stifle speech. In Canada and USA, the situation is reversed on free speech. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/derek-james-from/canadas-hypocritical-blasphemy-law_b_4018751.html http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/derek-james-from/canadas-hypocr...
- burkaman 9y agoYes, the world isn't perfect and sometimes people misuse laws and authority. But there is no contradiction in the UN positions that we're talking about right now.
- burkaman 9y agoWho do you imagine you're talking to?
- and0 9y agoThis person is blowing up the net neutrality thread with the same insanity.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y agoA UN diplomat who is negotiating laws. Am I wrong?
- burkaman 9y agoI don't know, but negotiating laws and charging corporations are very different things.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15133942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15133942 The person said that she/he was a Diplomat who negotiated this law. >negotiating laws and charging corporations are very different things. I agree. UN is toothless in enforcing anything, it is just grandstanding anyway. That was the point of my question, when do they propose on doing something about the corporations who invalidate the rights to speech. To show just that.
- traverseda 9y agoI presumed this wouldn't apply, but article 19 does look interesting. """ 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. """ There may actually be a case for the US needing to change their laws to extend free-speech protections to things that happen on the internet. But that's a whole separate issue. Maybe something the EFF would be interested in?
- msla 9y agoThe Constitution already applies to what happens on the Internet. That Article would be more relevant to countries with hate speech laws or blasphemy laws.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y agoWhat about private corporation that provide platforms for modern day public discourse enforcing their own blasphemy laws?
- msla 9y agoWhat about them? The US Constitution only binds on the Federal government and, through the process of incorporation, state (and, therefore, county and local) governments. Private entities can do what they want. In a more normative sense (that is, describing what should be as opposed to simply what is), private entities should be able to enforce their own rules, there shouldn't be any limits to how many private entities there are, and it should be simple to move from one private entity to another. In fact, I'd support data portability laws, simply based on the concept that data is an objectively valuable property and should be owned by the people it was generated from.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y ago>Private entities can do what they want. The baker should be able to deny baking a cake to gay couple? A pharmacist should be able to deny knowing options about birth control based on religious rights? A hospital should be able to deny removal of life sustaining device when I don't want it anymore? >Private entities can do what they want. Is there a difference between a private entity and a public corporation? If I run my own plumbing company, I can hire my son without putting up an ad in the paper. Should a Google executive be allowed to hire her husband without putting up an ad? We hold public companies at a higher standard that private individuals, correctly so. What if Mead stopped you from using their notebook to write down a thought that they don't agree with?
- lukas099 9y agoFreedom of Speech means freedom from State prevention of speech. It doesn't mean e.g. that my friend can't kick me out of his house for spouting white separatist hate speech in his living room. Google/Twitter/Facebook/Reddit are private entities that own their platforms and can enforce rules there.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y ago>private entities that own their platforms and can enforce rules there. There are private entities, public corporations and government. We hold government to highest standard of equality, we give private entities most freedom to discriminate. Public corporation with share holders are held somewhere in between. Your friend can kick a person spouting white separatist views out of his room. Good call, in my opinion, by your friend. Should Mead, makers of paper notebooks, have a right to see what someone has writing in a notebook and take away the notebook if they don't like what's being written?
- a_diplomat 9y agoAlso, the original resolution was passed in 2012 under the document name A/HRC/RES/20/8. It is biannualised and reintroduced every two years in the Human Rights Council. The original resolution is more crisp and concise. The 2016 version was a compromise between many different interests. There is a section on the importance of applying a human-rights based approach when providing the internet, but this does not mean that internet access is a human right.
- RivieraKid 9y agoWhy was such resolution necessary? I mean, why not make a resolution saying that human rights are applicable at night, for people older than 50 years, etc?