Rights initiative (EDRi), a Brussels-headquartered “association of civil and human rights organisations from across Europe,”19 was founded in 2002, perhaps reflecting one of the earliest uses of the term. People have, however, been drafting bills of internet rights since at least the mid-1990s,20 and over the last decade a strong body of interdisciplinary literature has emerged that considers digital rights as an extension of human rights with specific characteristics and implications.21 The UN Human Rights Council, for instance, has affirmed multiple times: [T]he same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression, which is applicable regardless of frontiers and through any media of one’s choice, in accordance with article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.22 Notwithstanding these efforts and milestones, digital rights has not yet emerged as a field of its own. Referring to the literature that does exist, internet scholars Rikke Jørgensen and Meryem Marzouki write: The majority of these sources, however, are not anchored in a theoretical framework but present empirically grounded studies of 1) opportunities and threats to established human rights standards by use of communication technology, in particular the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression, or 2) cases that focus on the use of technology for human rights and social change, or 3) standard-setting that seeks to establish norms for human rights protection in the online domain. At present there is a lack of scholarship connecting the human rights challenges raised by these numerous studies with their theoretical context.23 19 https://edri.org/about 20 Gill, L., Redeker, D., & Gasser, U. (2015). Towards Digital Constitutionalism? Mapping Attempts to Craft an Internet Bill of Rights. Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2015-15. https:// ssrn.com/abstract=2687120 21 Jørgensen, R. F. (2016). Negotiating boundaries: How platforms shape human rights. ipp.oii.ox.ac.uk/sites/ipp/files/documents/ boundary%2520OII.pdf 22 Human Rights Council. (2016). The promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet. A/HRC/RES/26/13. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/845727/files/A_HRC_ RES_32_13-EN.pdf 23 Jørgensen, R. F., & Marzouki, M. (2015). Reshaping the Human Rights Legacy in the Online Environment. L’Observateur des Nations Unies, 38, 17-33. In addition, most of the many organisations24 that advocate and promote digital rights similarly reflect this practical grounding by referring to other established normative frameworks, such as civil liberties and human rights, and then situating them semantically “online” or “on the internet”. Thus, the phrase “digital rights” does not yet refer to a specific set of rights or theory of rights. Rather, it is shorthand for a broad group of rights issues raised when interpreting human rights and civil liberties in digitally networked spaces.25 Given, as Jørgensen and Marzouki note, that “the modalities of the online realm provide significant challenges to human rights protection, many of which remain largely unexplored” – such as the so-called right to be forgotten or the right to access the internet26 – what exactly is a digital right is still left open to interpretation, posing potentially significant challenges, one of which for our purposes is whether the term can be used as the cornerstone of a rigorous and replicable research methodology. One outcome of this conceptual instability is a propensity of digital rights actors to “pick up” their “right of interest, with limited attention to the overall framework and the interdependence between the full architecture of rights.”27 In short, the question that emerges for our methodology is, Which rights satisfy the definition of digital rights when looking at the legal framework and which do not? 24 For instance, on its home page, Access Now, an international non-profit advocacy organisation founded in 2009, says it “defends and extends the digital rights of users at risk around the world.” Nowhere on the site, however, does it define digital rights. It is left to visitors to interpret what digital rights are via the programme areas it covers: business and human rights, digital security, freedom of expression, net discrimination, and privacy. The San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), founded in 1990, regularly uses the term “digital rights” in advocacy and press communications. Its mission, however, is phrased as “defending civil liberties in the digital world,” including user privacy, free expression, and innovation. The organisation also maintains a web page called “Themes in Digital Rights”, but does not define digital rights, except as through the themes listed, which include NSA spying, fair use, transparency, freedom of speech, drones, and blogger’s rights, among others. Other digital rights advocacy organisations similarly skirt defining the term, except through their work. EDRi, for example, defends “rights and freedoms in the digital environment,” in programme areas such as privacy, copyright, self-regulation, freedom of expression, security and surveillance. The objective of the Chile-based Derechos Digitales, whose name means “digital rights” in Spanish, is “the development, defence and promotion of human rights in the digital environment,” encompassing free expression, privacy and personal data, and the rights of authors and access to knowledge. Digital Rights Ireland, meanwhile, “is dedicated to defending Civil, Human and Legal rights in a digital age.” It currently campaigns on the issues of privacy and data retention, web blocking and filtering, and copyright reform. 25 Here, we adopt sociologist Zeynep Tufecki’s definition of “networked” from the preface to her 2017 book Twitter and Teargas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, as “the reconfiguration of publics and movements through assimilation of digital technologies into their fabric.” 26 Jørgensen, R. F., & Marzouki, M. (2015). Op. cit. 27 Ibid. 10 / Unshackling Expression