While there has been a great deal of hullabaloo concerning Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, one would probably not have expected senior officials at the United Nations to find it necessary to have their say on the matter. Yet on November 5th Volker Türk, the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, did indeed weigh-in, sending an open letter to Mr. Musk to express his “concern and apprehension” about Twitter’s role in the “digital public square”. He urged Musk to make sure human rights would be “central to the management of Twitter”, and to “address harms” associated with the platform, and also took the time for a bit of finger-wagging at Twitter’s new CEO for sacking Twitter’s human rights team (no, I had no idea it had one either).
The letter was almost certainly only sent so that Türk, who assumed office in mid-October and is a comparative unknown (some UN insiders were apparently hoping for Michelle Obama or Angela Merkel), can get a bit of recognition. But it is instructive nonetheless in giving stark expression to the awkward position which human rights advocates have found themselves adopting when it comes to one of the most salient issues of the day – the regulation of speech online and particularly the subjects of disinformation and misinformation.
This happens in the course of two short paragraphs. Starting off, Türk is keen to emphasise the importance of protecting free speech. Twitter, he notes, is being pressed by governments to take down content or use upload filters, and he urges it in clear terms to “stand up for the rights to privacy and free expression to the full [sic] extent possible under relevant laws”. So, on the one hand, he adopts a strong position against censorship, implying that speech should only be restricted online where it would cross the border into illegality.
Yet on the other hand, in the very next breath, he declares that “free speech is not a free pass” and that the “viral spread of harmful disinformation…results in real world harms”. Therefore, in his view, Twitter must take responsibility to “avoid amplifying content” that results in harms to people’s rights – whether or not, by implication, it is technically legal. Hence, for example, scepticism about the efficacy of vaccines, legally expressed, ought nonetheless to be supressed given the impact it might have on the right to health.
This can only be described as cakeism. For Türk, it is apparently desirable both to protect freedom of expression to the fullest extent possible under the law, and yet also to restrict lawful speech where it might result in ‘harms’. It is easy to see the appeal in the abstract of the idea that these positions can be reconciled, and Türk indeed concludes his letter by suggesting that “our shared human rights offer a unifying way forward”. But it is difficult to see from its content how this could be so. Does Türk believe that freedom of speech should be protected insofar as it is possible to do so? Or does he believe lawful speech should be suppressed to prevent harm? He can believe in one, but he surely cannot coherently believe in both.
The wider point is that human rights advocates like Türk have rather lost faith in their own model. For decades, it has been orthodox human rights doctrine that all human rights are, in UN-speak, “indivisible and interdependent”. The rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association, non-discrimination, health, food, housing, education, and so on, all support one another and, indeed, cannot properly be enjoyed without the others. It is therefore not only possible to secure (say) freedom of expression and the right to health – they actually bolster each other.
The rationale for this can be readily understood: if freedom of expression is secure, then people will have access to the full range of information and opinion available on any given topic, and therefore policymakers, healthcare providers, doctors and patients will be able to make better health-related decisions than they would otherwise. There is therefore a direct link between securing freedom of speech and the right to health. (And conversely, of course, securing the right to health means increasing opportunities for people to express themselves freely – one will find it much easier to actively participate in public discourse if one is in good health than not.) What is true in this example is true across the round, and the orthodox position in the UN human rights system has long been that these mutually-supportive linkages can be found throughout the human rights corpus.
This is not, however, the position that Türk adopts in his letter. To reiterate, for the new High Commissioner, freedom of expression and the right to health are not in fact “indivisible and interdependent”, but incommensurate. If people are able to express themselves freely, they will circulate dangerous disinformation about vaccines, and harm will result. Freedom of expression does not reinforce the right to health; it undermines it.
Türk is no loose cannon. As short as his letter to Musk is, it essentially summarises the position adopted in a recent report to the UN General Assembly by the Secretary-General himself. This report manages somehow to express a robust defence of the “right to hold opinions without interference” and an insistence that “free communication of information and ideas about public and political issues… is essential”, while at the same time advocating for state intervention to prevent the spread of inaccurate information concerning “public health, electoral processes or national security” and the demonetisation of legal-but-harmful content. The same schizophrenic attitude is adopted as in Türk’s letter, but the message is clear enough: while it is necessary to pay lip service to the importance of freedom of expression, the system as a whole now disavows the “indivisible and interdependent” doctrine, and instead sees freedom of expression as being potentially antagonistic to other rights.
What are we to make of this? The clue is in the types of harmful inaccurate information that both Türk and the Secretary-General identify as particularly dangerous and hence warranting state suppression – i.e., those implicating public health, electoral processes and national security. It is no accident that these subjects map pretty closely to the issues that are of greatest concern to the global bien pensant class in which these figures are so firmly entrenched – Covid vaccines, ‘election denialism’, and Russian disinformation. And it is not really a great surprise that when the chips are down and the consensus within that class is that oppositional views on those topics represent a genuine threat, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Secretary-General suddenly find that freedom of expression is not so “indivisible and interdependent” with respect to other rights at all. Indeed, it is to be sacrificed where those particular concerns are raised. Human beings, as we know, can be remarkably flexible on points of principle when peer pressure is applied – even, it turns out, senior human rights lawyers and UN Secretary-Generals.
More broadly, if one were being especially cynical, one might say that this is further evidence supporting the long-term criticism of the international human rights system – that it is essentially a forum for pharisaical expressions of right-on opinions which vary in accordance with whatever the ‘current thing’ is. This would not be entirely fair – the UN human rights organs do very important work – but it is sometimes easy to see how this view proliferates. Türk’s letter is suggestive not so much of a commitment to the letter of human rights law, but rather only to the contemporary concerns of a particular elite constituency. This in turn indicates that the UN human rights apparatus as a whole is geared more toward addressing the anxieties of that constituency than it is towards standing up for human rights across the board. Is it any wonder, then, that ordinary people generally take a sceptical view about human rights in the round?
Dr. David McGrogan is Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School.
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My default assumption about the senior leaders of any large body or institution is that they don’t believe in freedom of speech nor do they actually care about whatever it is their institution is meant to be “helping” with. So far that assumption is proving solid.
“it has been orhtodox human rights doctrine that all human rights are, in UN-speak, “indivisible and interdependent”.”
That is unless you’re part of a new Plutocracy that’s trying to build a ruthless global dictatorship based around ‘kindness’.
Methinks that’s just the usual US cultural imperialism: Whatever is different from the kind of society the Democrats want to create in the USA is a threat to it. Hence, it must be eliminated. The multicultural society is one where one can get 80 different kinds of junk food in a single street. Beyond that, only worshipping Black Friday is allowed. After all, if all people are equal, they cannot have different cultures.
The notion of a human right to health is nonsense. Granting health is way beyond human powers.
Apart from that, what Türk obviously means is that rogue states like (current example) Quatar must not interfere with the human right of their citiziens to publish gay porn on the internet – this being freedom of speech – but that people must not be allowed to express their opinions on anything other than different kinds sexual activities, as that’s harmful misinformation.
“The notion of a human right to health is nonsense.”
Indeed. I’m not overly convinced about “rights” to food, housing and education. Of course those are all things we would all want to have, and it would be nice to think that every country could provide something along those lines. But what kind of food, housing and education? How much? And who pays for it? Who decides when this “right” is satisfied. My understanding of rights was/is limited to basic freedoms that a state must not be able to take away from you. It seems to me these other “rights” provide a handy excuse for states and other bodies to throw their weight around and take your property and your tax money.
They’re still qualitatively different because food, housing and education can be provided by people. Health can’t. Hence, decreeing a right to health boils down to Public authorities may take any rights away from any number of people when it’s claimed that this will be beneficial to public health and – that’s important – regardless of whether or not this actually improves anyone’s health as this can’t generally be demonstrated. Right to health is thus equivalent to perfectly abritrary state and NGO totalitarianism, effectively negating whatever other humans rights are claimed to exist.
That said, I agree with you: Universal access to food, housing and education is a political goal of a so-called welfare state. Proclaiming such rights amounts to demanding that every country on the planet must be a universal welfare state (ie, one where welfare isn’t restricted to citizens or legal inhabitants) or – alternatively – that everybody not living in such a welfare state has a human right to immigrate into one. The second part is probably the intended one. The UN thus proclaims a universal human right of benefits tourism (to use the British term).
The Human Rights organisations and people are now just left global takeover and reset shills. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/11/strasbourg-cul-de-sac/
They have just confirmed that you ain’t a journalist and as such have no protection if you don’t work for an MSM outfit.
https://www.unz.com/proberts/the-suppression-of-free-speech-has-close-to-majority-support-in-america/
The sooner people realise that the people with power and influence don’t care a jot about your “rights”, the better.
‘Rights’ are privileges that are given and taken away, without recourse, without adequate explanation or justification.
Anyone shouting “I have rights” is a fantacist.
Exactly. Hence the concept (sure, still a concept) of inalienable rights. That no man can take the “God-given” rights. Of course, it is all in the mind of man, but that’s the point – no man shall control my destiny. If we move an inch on this important principle, then it’s all up for us.
Speak softly, and carry a big gun.
Türk’s opening comments about freedom of speech are no more than customary civility, in the same way as one might say “very nice to see you” when meeting someone who you actually thoroughly dislike.
I don’t think so. To him, freedom of speech as a human right is at stake when viewpoints he (institutionally, so to say) approves of are being suppressed or the people uttering them targetted by the state. Reusing the example I already had: This would refer to people from Quatar soliciting same-sex relationships online or talking about their experiences as homosexuals there. Twitter must defend freedom of speech, that is, resist the attempts of local government in jurisdictions where this is illegal to stop such speech and/ or or identify and prosecute the involved people. OTOH, there’s no free pass for expressing viewpoints he (strongly) disapproves of. This would be dangerous and harmful and hence, Twitter ought to do something about it.
Brilliant article, and a thousand notional upvotes for introducing me to the term ‘pharisaical’..
The behaviour of the UN’s bien pensent class – as Mr McGrogan puts it – reminds me of a child making up rules on-the-fly for a game he’s invented, modifying them at every round to ensure he always wins.
To pick a category close to their heart – ‘election denialism’ – it doesn’t take a genius to see that, all things being equal, if the political party of the righteous is able to use tools of censorship to squash questioning of the legitimacy of any election they win, the party of deplorables will be able to use the same tools in the future. Removal of the most important means of scrutiny ensures every election increasingly becomes a race to the bottom in terms of corruption – this being the only means left by which to win.
Those comprising this technocratic class might be hubristic, but they’re not stupid. That this prospect doesn’t seem to bother them gives us an important clue as to the extent to which things are not equal, and the direction this inequality is heading. It shows us how confident they are in their power to game the system, to ensure that this advocacy for selective overturning of freedom of communication can’t turn round to bite them in the arse. You wouldn’t consider using a chemical weapon unless you had your hazmat suits and gas masks prepared in advance.
We can only guess at the extent of their influence in terms of eroding already fragile representative democracy, and make our best efforts to separate it from our reasonable paranoia given the sea of official dishonesty in which we swim. It might already extend to proxy control of all official means of scrutiny of election results; unimpeded implementation of electoral systems and rules that offer the most potential for fraud; total control of the mainstream media narrative, and of course, control of the flow of information on social media – explaining the anxiety of this class surrounding Twitter, which for the time being they have lost.
The right-thinking classes inhabiting the UN, EU, WHO, top tiers of industry and government, might be better educated and more morally attuned than the rest of us. Their cultural insulation from the reality of daily life for the vast majority might give them a better perspective on our struggles and ways to guide us; how to protect us from ourselves in terms of our impulsivity, dangerous populism, overconsumption and greed. They certainly seem to believe this. They also believe that the solution to these problems is top-down oversight of government and corporations by the unaccountable, unelected supranational organisations they control, who in effect become the perfectly balanced and incorruptible ‘Lawgiver’ of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideal utopia. It is no accident that Rousseau’s ideas formed the model for the most murderous, brutal, oppressive regimes of the 20th century.
Their hubristic blind-spot – belief in their righteousness and incorruptibility inherent in people who advocate for centralisation of power – is self-perpetuating, and ensures that when this group of people start to dig a hole for themselves, they can only keep digging. There’s no doubt that misinformation is a problem – as it always has been. People always mistrust the rich and powerful, and a minority can always leverage this suspicion to push their own agenda when it suits them. Sometimes this agenda is financial, sometimes it’s political. Sometimes it’s just to seek company of others in a shared belief system. Often it contains a degree of the truth, making it harder to separate out fact from fiction.
There are only two ways to mitigate the impact of misinformation: either attempt to control it through counterpropaganda and censorship, which not only fuels mistrust but adds to polarisation of speculation into damaging overcertainty – at the same time creating conditions ripe for totalitarianism. Alternatively, strive to build and retain trust in the integrity of institutions charged with protecting and conveying the truth as accurately and impartially as possible. Our global political classes have evidently chosen the former model, and are continuing enthusiastically in their efforts to do irreparable damage to the latter.
The truth is that the elites might seem to have wrestled control back from the populations of the nations of the Earth, neutering Brexit and chucking out Donald Trump, but they’re terrified they’re living in Napoleon’s 100 days. I suspect they are.
The level of extremism seen over the last couple of years – lockdowns, masking, hardcore policing, encouraging neighbours to spy on and report on each other – is an act of a desperate, childlike mindset. It’s the equivalent of sitting in a corner, one hand over the eyes, the other wildly swinging a cutthroat razor screaming ‘Stay away from me!’
People aren’t going to accept the Budget we’ve just had. When it bites through the winter and into the Spring, expect real trouble in the UK and across Europe. They just don’t realise it! The era of the investment banks, the elitists, the technocrats is over.
S’Funny. All the “human rights” the lefty Globalists preach about seem intended to deprive ME of the rights I’ve had since I was born in what used to be a pretty free and fair society.
I’m not allowed to say what I like. I must conform to PC/Woke propaganda. I can’t express an opinion on medical procedures. I must accept hundreds of thousands of criminal migrants coming into the country and cheerfully pay for their luxury lifestyles whilst many of them prey on us. etc
Perhaps they should call them “Human Rights – Except for Citizens of Western Nations.”
Check his bank account. The answer certainly lies in a column there.