Human versus inalienable rights: Is there still a future for online protest in the anonymous world?

Gillen, Martina

Abstract

The protection of legitimate political protest is one of the hallmarks of a functional liberal democracy.
Certainly, there is increasing legal debate about the parameters of what constitutes legitimate protest and the
appropriate scope of police powers to regulate it. However, there is no widespread call for the dismantling of
the concept of a right to protest. The same consensus is not present however when one considers the right
to protest in cyberspace. This article considers the possible reasons for this beginning with the recent
practice of protest online, then by considering factors which may affect the legitimacy of that practice or
which are unique to the online environment. The main argument of this paper is that human rights discourse
as interpreted by the judiciary is very much focused on humans beings as embodied entities and thus has
difficulty recognising that a human being acting in the disembodied sphere of cyberspace is still a rights
bearing agent. In other words the disembodied human is alienated from their rights. With this in mind we
shall explore the legal framework in which online protest operates within the EU and offer some suggestions
about how online protest could be better managed and protected

Citation

Gillen, M. (2012). Human versus inalienable rights: Is there still a future for online protest in the anonymous world?. European Journal of Law and Technology, 3(1),

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2012
• Deposit Date: Aug 21, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 10, 2016
• Journal: European Journal of Law and Technology
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 1
• Keywords: human rights, cyberspace
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/953076
• Publisher URL: http://ejlt.org/article/view/127