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Regulation of Bloggers and Citizen Journalists

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Title: Regulation of Bloggers and Citizen Journalists


1
Regulation of Bloggers and Citizen Journalists
  • Stephanie Muchai
  • ARTICLE 19 KENYA
  • muchai_at_article19.org
  • Presentation for
  • Bloggers Responsible And Ethical Use Of Online
    Freedom In The Election Period
  • Friday October 12, 2012
  • I-HUB, Bishop Magua Centre - Ngong Rd, Nairobi

2
Online Content Regulation
  • Online content regulation has become an important
    focus of governments across the globe as they
    have become increasingly uneasy about the
    availability of a wide variety of online content,
    which they cannot control.
  • By and large, States have been concerned with the
    availability of terrorist propaganda, racist
    content, hate speech, sexually explicit content,
    including child pornography, blasphemous content,
    content critical of the government and its
    institutions and content unauthorised by
    intellectual property rights holders.

3
Online Content Regulation
  • The only exceptional types of expression that
    States are required to prohibit under IL are (a)
    child pornography (b) direct and public
    incitement to commit genocide (c) hate speech
    and (d) incitement to terrorism.
  • Criminalising these types of expression must be
    sufficiently precise, and there must be adequate
    and effective safeguards against abuse or misuse,
    including oversight and review by an independent
    and impartial tribunal or regulatory body.
  • Criticism of public officials, policies etc is
    not a legitimate prohibition (unless defamation
    etc)

4
The rights of Citizen-journalists and Bloggers
  • Internet means that any individual can now
    self-publish his opinions and ideas on a blog or
    social media network. This raises the question of
    how journalism should be defined
  • and what is media in the digital age.
  • Equally, the question arises whether and, if so,
    how citizen journalists and bloggers should
    be regulated.

5
The rights of Citizen-journalists and Bloggers
  • There are no clear standards on the following two
    questions first, whether, and if so, what
    professional standards should be applied to
    citizen journalists and bloggers
  • and secondly, whether citizen journalists and
    bloggers should be able to avail themselves of
    the protection of sources.

6
The rights of Citizen-journalists and Bloggers
  • Why is there an issue of whether bloggers and
    citizen journalists are journalists in the media
    definition?
  • Media freedom protections
  • Protection of sources
  • Safeguards from interference
  • Preventing self censorship
  • Level of regulation
  • Subject to duties and responsibilities of
    journalists
  • Conflicting views about level at which bloggers
    should be considered journalists

7
The rights of Citizen-journalists and Bloggers
  • Approach to Regulation of Bloggers and Citizen
    Journalists
  • Any laws affecting bloggers and citizen
    journalists should recognise that they have more
    limited duties and responsibilities when
    exercising their freedom of expression than
    professional journalists because they do not have
    the same resources and technical means as
    newspapers.
  • Bloggers and citizen journalists are not immune
    to the application of such laws, e.g. defamation
    law. Both have a duty, like any other citizen, to
    obey the law, they can equally afford themselves
    of the defences available in the law.

8
The rights of Citizen-journalists and Bloggers
  • Approach to Regulation of Bloggers and Citizen
    Journalists
  • The law does not generally make any distinctions
    between journalists and the rest of the
    population for the purposes of civil or criminal
    liability.
  • However, there is a world wide push by FoE
    advocates to decriminalize defamation.

9
The rights of Citizen-journalists and Bloggers
  • The question whether bloggers and citizen
    journalists can avail themselves of legal
    principles governing the protection of sources is
    more controversial.
  • It has been recommended in IL that some form of
    support and protection should be provided to
    media actors who do not fully qualify as media
    under a number of criteria set forth by the
    Committee, such as bloggers, but who at the same
    time participate in the media ecosystem (i.e
    users who make content of public interest
    available on collective online shared spaces
    which are designed to facilitate interactive mass
    communication - this includes content-sharing
    platforms and social networking services.

10
Plenary Considerations
  • Should bloggers and citizens should benefit from
    the same legal protections as journalists where
    they undertake the activity of journalism?
  • Are Internet users in Kenya being given the same
    due process due to all accused persons?
  • What is the basis of citizen journalist/blogger
    targeting in Kenya?
  • How are monitoring systems being used?
  • Are there ways in which Internet users are
    prejudicing themselves while exercising their
    freedom of expression through ignorance of
    monitoring systems?

11
  • THANK YOU
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