Social Networks and the Exercise of Fundamental Rights: Public Administration and the Digitalization of Fundamental Rights

Abstract

The use of social networks may increase the potential for risks and violations of fundamental rights. Still, it can also be seen as a platform for exercising of these rights, thus contributing to their implementation and promotion by the Government. This is so because the executive power is still bound to protect and promote fundamental rights, even if these are exercised through cyberspace. Through two examples of different fundamental rights—the right to freedom of expression and the right to assemble and the right to protest and to participate in demonstrations—I will try to understand in this text some of the risks and challenges that the phenomenon of the digitalization of rights poses for the exercise of democracy, as well as for the Public Administration of a democratic rule of law State.