Strategies for Internet Technology and Digital Rights Reporting https://zimbabwe.misa.org Background Recent developments in African communication ecologies show an expanding space for unique sets of non-journalistic actors who are now integrated into traditional news media in sourcing, data journalism projects and fact-checking10. In Southern Africa, digital rights are championed by nonjournalistic actors within civil society who have borne a disproportionate burden of the required work in the context of what ought to be a multi-stakeholder effort11. One reason civil society has been at the forefront of championing digital rights is that the12overwhelming instinct of many countries has been largely toward subordinating rights and access in order to retain political control over citizens by adopting Chinese and Russian models. These13 Chinese and Russian models of so called “rule of law” tactics typically involve violating citizens’ digital rights through legislation that is ostensibly written to promote law and order. Although the United Nations Human Rights Council asserts that “the same rights that people have offline must be protected online”14, its position is not legally binding hence individual countries decide how to handle digital rights. In several sub-Saharan Africa countries, digital rights are violated despite the 15existence of a number of regional standards relevant to the protection of human rights on the Internet, such as the following: • African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights of 1981 • Windhoek Declaration on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press of 1991 • the African Charter on Broadcasting of 2001 • Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa of 2002 • African Platform on Access to Information Declaration of 2011 • African Union Convention on Cyber-security and Personal Data Protection of 2014. Digital rights include freedom of expression (FOE), internet access and affordability, right to information, privacy and personal data protection amongst others. In the wake of COVID-19, several governments in the region have placed restrictions to ostensibly contain the pandemic thus further impacting on digital rights. For instance, the governments of Zimbabwe and South Africa responded 10See CfP ‘African Digital Media Review’ (ADMR) (Issue No: 7) - Making News Outside Traditional Media: The Rise of Peripheral Actors in African Communication Ecologies 11See ‘Digital rights in Africa Report 2019’, published by Paradigm Initiative https://paradigmhq.org/dra2019/ [Accessed on 16 September 2020] 12See ‘Digital rights in Africa Report 2019’, published by Paradigm Initiative https://paradigmhq.org/dra2019/ [Accessed on 16 September 2020] 13ibid 14See ‘The promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet’ https://www.article19.org/data/files/Internet_ Statement_Adopted.pdf [Accessed on 16 September 2020] 15See ‘African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms‘ https://africaninternetrights.org/en/declaration [Accessed on 16 September 2020] 4