Threats to Freedom of Expression on Social Networks Franz Chavez - Inter Press Service
go to original December 27, 2016

The Zainab Salbi Project travels to Mexico to meet with brave female journalists who have survived violent attacks and are risking their lives by working under constant threat. (The Huffington Post)

Email surveillance, blocking of websites with content that is awkward for governments, or the interruption of services such as WhatsApp are symptoms of the threat to freedom of expression online, according to Latin American activists. Representatives of organizations in the region participated this month in Zapopan, on the outskirts of the Mexican city of Guadalajara, in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF 2016), an initiative promoted by the United Nations Organisation since 2015. They discussed the problems facing freedom of speech on the social networks.

A total of 12 Mexican civil society organizations highlighted the situation in their country, which is similar to that of other countries in the region.

In a statement they denounced the interception of communications and the use of malware “to silence journalists and political opponents”.

“Mexican authorities intercept private communications” and 99 percent of the geolocalisation and obtaining of people’s digital identity (metadata) ”are done without a judicial order,” they stated in the document, issued by the Mexican branch of Article 19, a Paris-based international organisation for the defence of freedom of expression.

“Civil society actors are very worried” with regard to the surveillance that the new technologies allow “and the possibility of intercepting our computers and telephones, where we leave a digital fingerprint when we look for news or use our email,” Edison Lanza, special rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights, told IPS.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in force since 1948, states that “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.”

Read the rest at Inter Press Service | En español

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Related: Freedom of Expression Unfiltered: How Blocking and Filtering Affect Free Speech (Article19)

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