Digital Pillories, Media Freedom and Positive State Obligations

Are safety and security required for journalists to have media freedom? And how can journalists be safe and secure in the digital era? These are integral questions that go to the heart of media freedom. Scholarly attention to safety and security is deserving because online abuse is so rampant in the professional lives of many journalists that it is undermining media freedom. This state of affairs prompts us to ask: what is the state’s role in protecting and preventing external harm that infringes on the safety and security of journalists and the wider fourth estate? This article makes two key propositions. The first is that journalist safety and security are needed for journalists to meaningfully exercise media freedom. The second is that the state has both normative and legal obligations to create a state of affairs in which journalists are safe and secure to exercise media freedom. This Article focuses on art. 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and suggests that the regulation of social media platforms, and even below-line comments on newspaper websites, are needed for the state to work towards meeting its obligations.

For more information about this research, contact Ricki-Lee Gerbrandt at r.gerbrandt@ucl.ac.uk.