The Impact of Digital Technologies on Human Rights: Between Oppression and Emancipation

Digital technologies have established themselves as tools of power with the potential to be both oppressive and emancipatory. Their interaction with human rights can generate digital violence, but also serve as vehicles for social mobilisation and the defence of fundamental rights. This duality is crucial, especially for vulnerable communities, who are both victims and active agents in the struggle for the protection of their rights.

Meta’s recent announcement to abandon the use of independent fact-checkers on its platforms shows how the decisions of large tech corporations affect democracy and fundamental rights. Mark Zuckerberg, by arguing that content moderators were ‘too politically biased’, underlines a dangerous concentration of power, without considering the impact on freedom of expression and objectivity of information. This measure could become a channel of disinformation, affecting citizens’ ability to make informed decisions.

However, digital technologies have also served as platforms for emancipation. In Colombia, organisations such as the Liga de Salud Trans and the Plataforma de la Ley Integral Trans have managed to build solidarity networks and make their demands visible, promoting significant changes in the social and political sphere.

An international example of the positive impact of technology in the fight for human rights is the #MeToo movement, which, through social media, enabled women around the world to speak out against sexual abuse and harassment. This global organisational capacity generated key social pressure to uncover cases of systematic abuse. In Colombia, the Constitutional Court has also recognised the use of digital platforms as a legitimate complaint mechanism, endorsing in rulings T-061 of 2022 and T-241 of 2023 the use of social media to confront aggressors.

However, the negative impacts of digitalisation on human rights are undeniable. Vulnerable populations, such as sex workers, transgender people and social leaders, face privacy violations, cyberbullying and digital gender-based violence. Digital platforms, by collecting large volumes of personal data, expose these groups to risks of persecution, physical violence and even death.

Stricter regulation and public policies to protect digital rights are urgently needed. Creating regulatory frameworks that guarantee privacy, security and fundamental rights is essential to curb abuses and promote equity in access to digital resources. Public institutions, universities and civil organisations must work together to generate research and action proposals that respond to the needs of vulnerable communities, considering the principle of intersectionality, which recognises the diverse oppressions faced by these populations.

Social mobilisation, when effectively articulated through digital platforms, can exert significant pressure on public policies. This creates spaces where victims of human rights violations can demand justice. Digital activism needs to continue to advance, ensuring the inclusion of all voices, but also protecting those who defend human rights in these virtual environments, who often face reprisals in the digital and physical realm.

Social action must transcend denunciation and become a transformative process that integrates the voices of communities in the design of public policies and regulatory frameworks that protect their rights. Through face-to-face meetings, interviews and focus groups, we have listened to the experiences of trans women, sex workers and rural women who have shared their concerns about the effects of digitalisation on their lives. This process has allowed us to understand how technologies can both facilitate and hinder the guarantee of human rights, depending on the context and the tools available.

Finally, it is essential that Colombia, as part of the global community, intensify its efforts to create a safe and equitable digital environment. The protection of digital rights should be seen not only as an ethical imperative, but as a legal obligation that allows all citizens, regardless of their identity, gender, sexual orientation or social status, to access the benefits of digitalisation without fear of having their human dignity violated.