Internet Shutdowns from the Perspective of Just Securitization Theory. With Johannes Thumfart
ISs might be legitimate as extraordinary security measure in emergency situations. Following JST, these criteria are based on citizens’ right to physical integrity, the expectation of reasonable success, proportionality, harm minimization, and specificity. Thumfart argues that it is not legitimate to use ISs to enact collective punishment, preemptive censorship, or hamper legitimate political protests. While denying the legitimacy of the vast majority of ISs on these grounds, the article sketches four exceptional scenarios (“WhatsApp lynchings,” “US Capitol 2021,” “Computer virus,” and “False alarm”) in which ISs can be legitimate. JST also includes states’ duty to desecuritize once a threat has been neutralized. In this way, a balanced discussion of ISs as an exceptional measure from the perspective of JST contributes to the establishment of a customary positive human right to digital connectivity in the normal situation.
For the Zoom link, please send an email to pept@uva.nl.
Johannes Thumfart is a Senior Researcher at the research group LSTS (Law, Science, Technology, and Society) at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and teaches ethics of international security management at the Berlin School of Economics and Law. He has held teaching and research positions at Université Paris VIII, Freie Universität Berlin, Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, and University of Cincinnati, and he (co-)authored numerous articles published in journals such as the European Journal for International Security, Global Studies Quarterly, the New Journal of European Criminal Law, and the Journal of Global Security Studies. He received his PhD from Humboldt Universität Berlin in the Intellectual History and Philosophy of International Law.
Selin Gerlek is an assistant professor in the philosophy of technology and politics at the University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on digital citizenship, transformative processes in human-technology relations, mediated cultural practices, empirical ethics & value change, as well as embodied and hermeneutic relations. Besides being a member of PEPT, she is also a scientific coordinator of the research line “Empirical Ethics” at the IAS and a member of several projects, commissions and groups on digital citizenship, medical ethics, AI and visual technologies.