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Government responses to online disinformation across Sub-Saharan Africa - A new tool for human rights defenders

A new tool for human rights defenders, LEXOTA, tracks and analyses government responses to online disinformation across Sub-Saharan Africa.

The proliferation of disinformation online poses a number of threats to human rights, but so too do laws and policies that are designed to tackle the phenomenon. In recent years we've seen states in Sub-Saharan Africa increasingly respond to disinformation through content-based restrictions and regulation. Many of these restrictions and regulations pose significant risks to individuals' right to freedom of expression. They are often overly broad in scope, pursue aims not considered legitimate by international human rights standards, and carry disproportionate penalties. The result is that they silence and censor legitimate forms of speech.

This event marks the launch of LEXOTA, an interactive tool to help human rights defenders across Sub-Saharan Africa challenge problematic laws and policies against disinformation. LEXOTA tracks and analyses laws, policies and other government actions on disinformation across the region. The tool is powered by data and insight from a Consortium of civil society organisations.

To attend, please register.
Please note, whilst your registration to attend the event will require some personal details (name, email, country and organisation), we confirm the latter will only be used to generate anonymous statistics.

May 10, 2022 12:00 PM in London