Description
The recent revolution in digital technology has not only created new opportunities for advancing human rights, especially in relation to grassroot politics and political activism, but it has also created significant challenges. Digital technologies, particularly social media, have become pivotal avenues for connecting people across borders, regardless of differences related to colour, nationality, religion, class or economic status. At the same time, social media has also become an arena of inflicting or inciting violence. These online narratives of violence pose significant challenges to state sovereignty and control, especially as they dictate and impact offline dynamics of violence. Vulnerable users of social media can easily fall prey to abuse, exploitation, cybercrime, including cybersex crimes, cyberbullying, cyber hate crimes, including hate speech directly inflicting or inciting violence, as well as trafficking. Governments across borders are challenged by the transnational nature of cyberviolence and are therefore frequently debating and adapting their policies to respond to the ever-changing challenges of the ‘digital’. This paper examines the challenges of digital technology to human rights, especially in relation to violence on social media networks. In doing so, it examines the nature and extent of cyberviolence in relation to existing human rights norms and state responsibility.
