and dissemination of knowledge are important to the Information Society. We call for the responsible use and treatment of information by the media in accordance with the highest ethical and professional standards….”
The UDHR also generously affirms that “everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits” (Article 27.1).
The Geneva Declaration is not a “new” proclamation of rights. Rather, it is the application of existing principles to the realities of the Internet, based on the idea that access is a right that facilitates other rights. The WSIS is therefore not claiming a new right but is instead launching a public campaign to raise awareness about the challenges to communication rights posed by a globalized society that faces the serious risk of a digital divide. Here, it is appropriate to invoke the ideas of Padovani, Raboy, and d’Arcy mentioned at the beginning of this chapter and that refer to communication rights, concretely through the concept of the right to communicate.
The right to culture is not based on utopian considerations and does not automatically entail free access to the Internet from the home or on mobile phones. And the state has a different role to play when taking on the (philosophical) challenge of ensuring the right to culture or the (practical) challenge of ensuring Internet access. What we might call the “right to universal Internet access,” which is reminiscent of the concept of a universal telephone service discussed a decade ago, has several dimensions: infrastructure, access or connection to the Internet, and access to services. Here, technical universality (access) connects with universality of subjects and of content.
Notes on the Technical Universality of Communication Rights: The Universality of Internet-Based Modes of Expression
We wrote in the Introduction to this volume that the “right to impart and disseminate information” – to use the wording of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – needs to be rethought in the face of the challenges posed by a population that is always connected or hyperconnected to mass media outlets through personal devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops. A telephone allows a user to follow a TV series, rent a film on YouTube or iTunes, and subscribe to a daily newspaper that will never be delivered to the home in paper form – or even be available in print. The device serves as a communication terminal through which the subscriber can send messages as well as participate and vote in events and debates. This is now the reality in many countries of the world thanks to smartphones and to networked societies, and it should prompt a rethinking of both the law and ethics of communication.
The limits of innovations centered on the mobile phone have not been reached. Innovators are working with the idea of devices or microchips inserted beneath the user’s skin and wearables – even glasses connected to a support or medium that helps us to exercise our communication rights.
The universality of technology and of media refers not only to an individual’s access or mode of connection to media but also to the tangible and intangible systems and media that, in the language of copyright law, “are known today or that will be invented in the future.”10 Such a conceptualization gives universal reach to platforms and media in which creativity is expressed, whether or not those media have yet been invented.
In parallel with a freedom of information that should be universal and neutral relative to the type of platform, copyright should not restrict “access to information” or be neglected as new forms of communication freedom are invented in the future. Rights cannot be constrained to the existing media or channels for disseminating news, ideas, and opinions.
These rights have been taking shape since the time of town criers who announced news in the streets and markets and continue to do so in today’s era of media services, apps, and Tweets by journalists, which enrich debate and media. A commentary11 from the UN Human Rights Committee indicates that the technical media and forms of expression used to disseminate information extend from oral and written forms to sign language and even to nonverbal expression such as images or works of art. These “media,” then, include books, newspapers, pamphlets, flyers, posters, advertising, and legal documents. They may be transmitted audio visually, electronically, or through the Internet.
News media (“the press”) is of particular importance among the various information media in a democratic society. These rights are universal, including during elections. Censorship has no place; instead, a strong relationship should exist between citizens and representatives such as members of parliament or congress. The UN commentary continues: “The free communication of information and ideas about public and political issues between citizens, candidates and elected representatives is essential. This implies a free press and other media able to comment on public issues without censorship or restraint and to inform public opinion. The public also has a corresponding right to receive media output” (2011, n. 13).
Access to websites, Internet service providers, or search engines should not be restricted. If some restriction exists, it should be compatible with the exceptions enumerated in Article 19.3 of the covenant and proportional to the problem or threat. In general, specific content should not be prohibited12 or blocked simply because it criticizes a government or state. These principles may seem self-evident, but they merit remembering.
Despite all the positive aspects of technical capabilities, and though access to the Internet is essential for the proper enjoyment of universal communication rights, there are challenges related to the current state of the Internet, in which private entities have amassed great power over online means of expression.
In Chapter 5 of this volume, Cetina Presuel warns that states and private actors risk confusing a “standardization” of what communication rights mean and where their limits should lie. Both private platforms and governments are relying on private rules and attempts to apply local laws globally in order to obtain uniform rules that allow them to police content online. In doing so, they are moving away from a view of a universal application of communication rights based on dialog and consensus and are instead attempting to arrive at common rules by imposition.
In turn, Julie Cohen (2017) warns that, in particular, powerful social media platforms may cause us to stray away from the “technologies of freedom” framework proposed by de Sola Pool (1983) and referenced by Monroe Price in the Preface of this volume, because “rather than predominantly stimulating the development and exercise of conscious and deliberate reason, today’s networked information flows are optimized to produce what social psychologist Shoshana Zuboff calls instrumentarian power:
