A/79/151 A. Media 55. The extent, depth and quality of media coverage during elections is dependent on many factors, including freedom of expression guarantees. A free and inclusive media, operating within a non-discriminatory and non-repressive rights-based legal framework, can serve as a valuable source of information for voters. Contemporary media environments consist of a diversity of formal and informal platforms, with traditional print, radio and TV joined by the multiplicity of social media universes. In adverse contexts, however, coverage by both formal and more informal media, including social media, may present substantial obstacles to full and equal electoral participation, such as by amplifying discriminatory rhetoric or inciting intimidation or violence against LGBT persons. Media platforms can be a negative influence when they contribute to the normalization of discriminatory discourse or disparaging messages towards LGBT persons. Journalists covering LGBT issues, or who are LGBT themselves, may be targets of intimidation and other attacks. Women journalists are particularly exposed to online attacks that are sexualized, misogynistic or defamatory in nature, 166 which “often target women from religious and ethnic minorities or gender non-conforming people”. 167 Information related to LGBT people may also be unreasonably restricted through national practices that criminalize public expression of LGBT identities or issues. 168 56. Independence of the media can be guaranteed by laws and long-standing practices for traditional media that may apply differently to private and publicly owned media outlets. Regulations aimed at preventing hate speech or incitement to violence tend to apply to all media outlets, whether public or private. Their application is rarely automatic and may necessitate enforcement through complaints to election management bodies, courts or oversight bodies. Complaints against disparaging or discriminatory rhetoric against LGBT candidates sometimes remain unaddressed or constrained in the context of electoral campaigns. A complicating factor in some jurisdictions is the regulation of responsibility for airing the views of individual politicians. It may well be the case that media outlets are not held liable for reproducing or broadcasting direct speech of individual politicians, especially if transmitted live on air. In the context of rapidly changing norms regarding both individual and platform responsibility for hate speech, it is important to bring attention to the harms arising from politicians’ use of discriminatory or violence-inducing rhetoric without any recourse to protection for harmed entities: such practices may normalize discriminatory rhetoric or even contribute to the risks faced by LGBT candidates. B. Social media and online campaigning 57. The connection between rhetoric in traditional media and the online domain remains a subject of research, both in academia and by election observers. Much depends on the tradition of responsible journalism and the level of restraint through regulation or self-regulation of hateful rhetoric in the media sphere, as well as the level of unrestrained access to or even control of State media by political actors. Ownership structures and linkages between business and political interests may also play a role. The propagation of hate speech and incitement to violence may rely on the cyclical connection between discourse being shaped online, picked up, normalized and propagated by traditional media, and then further propagated online as a more __________________ 166 167 168 20/25 See A/HRC/56/53. A/HRC/50/29, para. 36. See A/76/258. 24-12964