Varuh ДЌlovekovih pravic

Safe use of internet - SAFE.SI

In 2005, the Ombudsman started participating in the SAFE-SI secure Internet use project with the main goal of ensuring safe Internet use for children and youth, to increase the level of awareness within target groups of parents and teachers, and to enable a comprehensive approach to finding ways to provide Internet security.

Promoting intolerance and stirring up hate on the World Wide Web is problematic from the aspect of human rights and therefore presents one of the problems in ensuring security within cyberspace. On the one hand, the Internet offers a new space for political participation, active citizenship, and development of democracy in general; however, on the other hand, it offers space for spreading traditional forms of social exclusion, intolerance, and discrimination.

The Internet as a special technological and communication tool requires the active involvement of a series of stakeholders (at the national and international levels) that can influence the limitation of hate speech and other intolerable interference with human rights on the Internet. Therefore the Ombudsman also actively participates in this project and draws the attention of the general public and authorities to this problem predominantly with the intention of giving a clear signal that spreading hate speech, even within cyberspace, is socially intolerable and must be responded to.