Abstract

WILSON, Richard Ashby. The Anti-Human Rights Machine: Digital Authoritarianism and the Global Assault on Human Rights.Translated byLuis Enrique Bossio. Maguare [online]. 2024, vol.38, n.1, pp.171-217.  Epub Jan 01, 2024. ISSN 0120-3045.  https://doi.org/10.15446/mag.v38n1.113500.

This article analyzes the effects of digital authoritarianism— online attacks by governments directed against human rights defenders— in Colombia and Guatemala. In so doing, it combines a political model and a minority model into a single theoretical approach that can comprehend the impacts of online anti-human rights discourse. Additionally, it documents the conditioning effects of attacks against activists on social media through interviews with the actors involved. It analyses the non- lethal effects of online hate speech and the adoption of protective measures by activists such as self-censorship, the abandonment of human rights work, and emigration. Finally, it advocates for a new United Nations-sponsored Digital Code of Conduct that would require states to adopt transparent digital policies, refrain from inciting attacks, and cease illegally surveilling human rights defenders.

Keywords : digital authoritarianism; social media; violence against human rights defenders; online anti-human rights discourse.

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