The United Nations has warned that social media regulation threatens rights of people.
The international organization stated that both public and private actors are intervening against online content in ways that makes it infringes rights.
The organization also disclosed that 40 new social media regulation laws have been adopted around the globe in the past two years, with additional 30 under examination.
While warning about social media regulation, Peggy Hicks of the UN Rights Office in Geneva said: “You see a digital world that is unwelcoming and frequently unsafe for people trying to exercise their rights.
“You also see a host of government and company responses that risk making the situation worse.
“Virtually every country that has adopted laws relating to online content has jeopardised human rights in doing so.
“In responding to public pressure to regulate online content, some governments see such legislation as a way to limit speech they dislike and even silence civil society and critics.
“We can, and should, make the internet a safer place, but it doesn’t need to be at the expense of fundamental rights.”
Hicks noted that the problem of “overbroad or ill-defined language” crossed ideological lines, from Vietnam to Australia, and Bangladesh to Singapore, and underscored the “critical importance of adopting human rights-based approaches to confronting these challenges.”
She added that “we need to sound a loud and persistent alarm, given the tendency for flawed regulations to be cloned, and bad practices to flourish.”
Also, she pointed to demands in Britain for stringent regulations in response to online racist attacks suffered by the three black England players who missed penalties in the recent Euro 2020 final.
