decade ago, I reflected on UDHR Article 19 (Corredoira 2007) in the context of Web 2.0. My primary focus was how this Article relates to the integration of new forms of public participation in media as well as to the new messages and methods that the Internet makes possible for industries and individual professionals. Since the use of the Internet became widespread in the mid-1990s, the universalization of communication rights has become even clearer. A range of stakeholders has emerged: a public that participates in and contributes to discussions in the media; media channels run by “digital natives” who require no license to broadcast or “print”; and social networks that democratize the communication of information and facilitate many channels for seeking it – sometimes from disruptive sources (Wasserman 2017, p. 72) – and for contributing to collaborative journalism.
Without any doubt, the guarantees contained in the generic right I have just analyzed or in the different “Bills of Rights” that contain them are, as Stephens (2005) says, insufficient. This is why it is useful to deconstruct this generic right into three rights: to seek information and ideas, to receive information and ideas, and to impart information and ideas. As a matter of fact, almost all international texts that recognize and interpret this “standard” do so while highlighting the “multifaceted” nature of freedom of expression, what we call, communication rights in order to reflect better this poliedric nature.
According to both Padovani (Padovani and Pavan 2006) and Raboy (Raboy 2004, pp. 345–359), communication rights originated in the United Nations Charter as described by D’Arcy when he proposed the “right to communicate,” a different concept than “communication rights” but that shares with the latter the idea that we are in need of a more extensive, fleshed-out right or set of three rights:
International recognition of the centrality of information to human rights dates back to the UN Charter, where article 19 states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; these rights includes the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
(Padovani and Pavan 2006)
International recognition of the centrality of information to human rights dates back to the UN Charter, where article 19 states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; these rights includes the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
(Padovani and Pavan 2006)
Yet it was not until 1969 that another concept, that of a universal “right to communicate” emerged in the words of Jean D’Arcy, former director of the Radio and Visual Service at the Office of Public Information for the UN:
The time will come when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will have to encompass a more extensive right than man’s right to information, first laid down-twenty one years ago in Article in 19. This is the right to communicate.
(D’Arcy 1969)
“The time will come when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will have to encompass a more extensive right than man’s right to information, first laid down-twenty one years ago in Article in 19. This is the right of man to communicate.
d’Arcy (1969)
Twenty-five years from the rise of the Web, the appearance of artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism and marketing, the digitalization of the commercial world, and the sharing economy are all trends that make it necessary to reassess the foundations of communication rights.
In the spirit of “updating” communication rights enshrined in the UDHR – rights that, as we will see in other chapters of this book, are the natural evolution of the “freedom of expression” of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – the Declaration of Principles, also known as the Geneva Declaration (International Telecommunications Union 2003), of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was approved in 2003. This declaration, which was supported by the UN as well as by the International Telecommunications Union (2003, 2014), established the universal nature of the information society and that no one can be excluded from those benefits. Therefore, the text was revised and included an update of the concept of communication rights by introducing the concept of the right to communicate we have referred to earlier. Among the things that the right to communicate sought to ensure was the “universality” of Internet access, something that the legislation of many countries does not guarantee. In light of the risks of a digital divide between countries and individuals, the declaration recognizes that “everyone, everywhere should have the opportunity to participate and no one should be excluded from the benefits the Information Society offers” (ITU 2003). Thus, a new dimension to communication rights, universality of access was highlighted and entered our contemporary conversation around communication rights and what they seek to guarantee.
Other distinguished academics such as Danieli, Stamatopoulou, and Dias (1999) as well as Birdsall (2007), have reflected on the ins and outs of that declaration, which will be the subject of several pages in the current volume. In particular, O’Flaherty (2012, pp. 627–654) has focused on freedoms related to communication, and more precisely on the “right to communicate.” Works such as those edited by Corredoira and Cotino (2013) or Bel Mallén and Corredoira (2015) or the study by Arellano (2012) serve as references for the most relevant freedoms and rights in the Latin American context and that also make it necessary to speak of communication rights, not just of a unidimensional right to freedom of expression.
Threats to Communication Rights Arising from the Internet and Its Universal or Mass Nature
At the time this chapter was being written, the media was broadcasting Prime Minister Theresa May’s announcement (Bienkof 2018) about the need for the United Kingdom to bring in laws to prohibit harassment of public personalities on social networks. This is not an isolated case. Throughout 2017, many political leaders and national and supranational democratic institutions – for instance, Macron in France,2 the Spanish government, and the European Union (Alandete 2018) – considered placing limitations on communication in places that we could term “3.0” in order to refer to the services of the information society, especially after the explosive expansion of the social Web.
It is also worth mentioning the revolution represented by virtual currencies such as BitCoin, which is now traded on Wall Street.3 These pose a challenge to sovereign states, some of which are now demanding special security measures be put in place. This was the European Union’s response (European Commission 2017) following the exposure of computer system vulnerabilities during the massive Wannacry ransomware attack. But let us not confuse monetary or fiscal policy, which have no basis in human rights, with communication rights, which enjoy the status of basic human rights. Constant technological change creates growing uncertainty as computers’ processing speeds accelerate and algorithms that publish content on leading websites and social networks (Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter) become more sophisticated. These changes are altering society in a way that has legal consequences and certainly poses ethical challenges.
Recently, websites such as Facebook4 have made major changes to their policies, and sometimes these have gone in the opposite direction to those made in the radio and television industries. Google is also repositioning itself having created and disseminated content through Google News since 2002. These changes are coming about in response to regulation of the information ecosystem. In Spain, Google News ceased operating in 2016 after a so-called Google tax or fee for press clipping or links to newspapers was approved. Even more recently, these platforms have shifted their business strategies and sought partnerships with major news outlets – for example, through the Google AMP initiative or Facebook News. These partnerships raise questions not only about the role of social media platforms as news organizations themselves, but also about the impact that a greater level of media concentration may have on communication rights (Cetina Presuel and Martínez Sierra 2019).
Death threats have a greater impact when they are published on Twitter or Facebook than when they are printed. There is undoubtedly greater sensitivity