ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two types of minorities, namely ethnic or national minorities and sexual minorities, and challenges to such groups in mainstream media and online media, especially social media. These two groups of minorities and two kinds of media are good examples of differences between the modus operandi of old and new media and challenges for protecting freedom of expression. Freedom of speech can lead to intercultural or cross-cultural conflict. Since the Internet plays a vital role in connecting people worldwide, communication on it can increase such conflict where there are differing levels of free speech protection. The digital age of the global Internet network and social media naturally requires a new, differentiated approach to ensuring media access and protection for diverse minority groups. It seems that the best solution to this issue is a multipronged approach. The best answers are education, self-regulation and limited international or European regulation. In a word—searching for the golden mean and balance between different values. While in the analogue era, international standards for protecting the rights of national, ethnic and linguistic minorities have been developed, in the digital age, a similar precaution should be guaranteed for other minorities, particularly LGBT+. In addition, it should be emphasised that the era of online media means that the existing international conventions containing specific guarantees for the protection of minority rights may turn out to be insufficient, given that private corporations managing social media increasingly appear to be “extra-territorial.” It also seems that these entities should declare appropriate guarantees for representatives of all minorities.
