Expressions from a Brave New Era

contributions of the Inter-American System to freedom of expression on the Internet

Abstract

Of outstanding importance, the right to freedom of expression in the digital environment requires regulation that dialogues with the basic characteristics of the Internet, in order to increase its democratic potential, which implies knowing the positions of international human rights courts, given its universalist aspect. From this perspective, this research has taken on the problem expressed in the following question: How does the Inter-American Human Rights System contribute to the delimitation of protected and excluded discourses in the context of freedom of expression in the digital environment? Thus, it established as its central objective: to analyze the content of the reports produced by the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, an organ of the Inter-American Human Rights System, namely, the Inter-American Legal Framework on the Right to Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Expression and the Internet, and Standards for a Free, Open, and Inclusive Internet. The research, which is qualitative and descriptive-analytical in nature, adopted the following methodological procedures: bibliographic research, whose objective was to deepen the theoretical understanding of the grammar of rights in the digital age, with an emphasis on its particularities, and a qualitative approach, with the aim of analyzing the content of the Inter-American Commission's recommendations regarding the right to freedom of expression on the Internet. The results of the analysis demonstrate that the conceptual parameters outlined by the reports of the Inter-American Commission, especially with regard to freedom of expression in the digital environment, offer interpretive guidelines relevant to delimiting the scope of protection and the legitimate limits of restriction of that right.