Kathmandu: A report on digital safety and internet freedom in South and Southeast Asia that assesses the status of digital safety and internet freedom in the region including Nepal has been launched on Wednesday.
‘Through the Looking Glass: Digital Safety and Internet Freedom in South and Southeast Asia’ is a report of the regional study carried out by EngageMedia in partnership with the Oxen Privacy Tech Foundation (OPTF).
The report synthesizes the findings from country reports submitted by six different countries, including Nepal on digital safety and internet freedom status. Digital Rights Nepal (DRN) had carried out the Nepal country study for this report.
The report was launched at RightsCon, an international summit on human rights in the digital age.
Speaking at the event Santosh Sigdel, Chair of Digital Rights Nepal presented the report’s findings from Nepal’s side.
He highlighted the significant skill and knowledge gap about digital safety among human rights defenders and at-risk communities, the negative impact of the online harassment and hate speech on human rights defenders, the lack of laws and policies that protect HRDs from digital attacks, and the lack of adequate policies and interest of telecommunications companies to protect subscribers rights in telecommunications.
He further stressed that the digital attacks against Nepalese women journalists and the LGBTIQ+ community have put them in jeopardy.
The report also provided some recommendations in order to strengthen digital safety capacity, address internet freedom issues, and improve the policies of telecommunications companies.
The report has suggested conducting training programs with practical strategies, avoiding the use of generic digital safety programs that have not been customized to fit the local context, investing more time and effort in understanding the needs of at-risk communities, and designing digital safety program curricula that address those needs.
Likewise, it advised forming coalitions with the private sector, and conducting campaigns to educate and improve awareness among parliamentarians and government officials about the negative consequences of blocking internet services and so on.
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