11 May 2020 A pandemic of mistrust
The World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), suggests that the coming decade will be decisive for the future of journalism. The 2020 edition of the Index, which evaluates the situation for journalists in 180 countries and territories, identifies five converging crises: geopolitical (due to the aggressiveness of authoritarian regimes); technological (due to a lack of democratic guarantees); democratic (due to polarisation and repressive policies); trust (due to aggravated suspicion of the media); and economic (impoverishing quality journalism). These are currently compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic.
04 May 2020 No surveillance without safeguarding privacy!
A key issue arising from responses to the Covid-19 pandemic is surveillance. Once governments have established ways of tracking and monitoring individuals in the name of national health security, they may become very difficult to undo.
27 Apr 2020 Extraordinary measures, extraordinary protections
More than 100 civil society groups have urged governments not to use the global coronavirus pandemic as cover for future pervasive electronic snooping but to make sure data is erased once the health crisis is over.
20 Apr 2020 To deny information is to deny human rights
Even faced with COVID-19, despotic regimes will stop at nothing. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has expressed its concern at some Middle Eastern governments taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to increase state censorship and to clamp down on the dissemination of news and information.
13 Apr 2020 Zoom zooms to rectify digital rights breach
[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_column_text]Civil liberties are most fragile during times of crisis. As conflict the world over has shown, digital communications infrastructures can easily be used to censor, to silence, to monitor, and ultimately to sanction. In China, WeChat and Weibo are extremely popular. China introduced new laws and hired hundreds of people to monitor content on these platforms, forcing netizens to be vigilant and to self-censor. The Chinese government claims that monitoring cyberspace betters society, but many believe that the authorities have an ulterior motive: suppressing alternative views and dissent in public and in private.
06 Apr 2020 Backsliding for profit
Trade relations must not be allowed to threaten hard-won universal rights. The United Kingdom appears to be trying to wriggle out of applying the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to its post-Brexit existence as a non-member of the European Union (EU).
30 Mar 2020 Digital privacy and the need to know
Collecting personal data for the best of reasons – such as tackling the coronavirus pandemic – has triggered a wave of misgivings. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) has responded to growing concerns with a statement (10 March 2020) urging “a balance between collective good and civil liberties.” The EFF statement says:
23 Mar 2020 When mainstream media get it right
Interesting to see the media's largely positive role in helping to combat the coronavirus crisis. According to Forbes Magazine (March 16), the World Health Organization (WHO) is becoming the planet’s most important social media influencer.