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A Postcolonial Legal Critique of Online Expression in Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2024
Abstract
Far beyond the contributions of African and western thought on the right to freedom of expression, there are now normative developments under international human rights law on how states can protect online expression. However, these developments are not applied in African countries. A reason for this is the extant provisions in various laws that threaten online expression. This article applies postcolonial legal theory to understand why and how these provisions threaten online expression in African countries. It identifies relevant thoughts on the right to freedom of expression, normative developments on the right and a new form of digital colonialism in Africa. It concludes that for African states and other actors to combat this new form of digital colonialism head-on, they must carry out targeted legal reform that repeals and amends these provisions.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS, University of London
Footnotes
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LLB (Ife), BL (Lagos), LLM, LLD (Pretoria). Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. The author wishes to thank Professor Magnus Killander, Samsudeen Alabi and the Research Group of the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria for their comments on earlier drafts of the article, as well as the anonymous reviewers.
References
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