Towards the Control of Social Media Content as a Requirement for Maintaining National Security and Guaranteeing the Right of Expression -Confronting hate speech in Algeria as a model

Abstract

Social networks have provided decentralized and flexible virtual spaces that allow the spreading and sharing of discrimination and hate speech under the guise of exercising freedom of expression. This has resulted in dangerous practices that posed a direct threat to the Algerian national security, and urged the legislator to issue a law for criminalizing this speech
and working to prevent it. The current study tries to figure out the motives of the trend to censor social networks without prejudice to freedom of opinion and expression. This study found that Law No. 20-05 related to the prevention from discrimination and hate speech represents a legal framework of reference for confronting this type of speech. It also found that sanctions cannot be relied upon to limit its spread, and for this reason, it called for the immediate need to expedite the installation of the National Observatory for the Prevention of Discrimination and Hate Speech. With regard to the issues that are related to the legitimacy of censorship, the study concluded that it is consistent with Algeria's international obligations, and it meets the standards that preserve the citizen’s dignity, privacy and confidentiality of data.