This chapter explores the challenges of applying human rights frameworks to the digital realm through the lens of non-coherence theory. This theory posits that human rights in the digital domain differ fundamentally from their offline counterparts owing to shifts in meaning, scope, and application. The chapter critically examines the assumption that offline human rights norms can be seamlessly transposed into the digital environment, highlighting the distortions and variances that arise in this process. It also delves into epistemological and ontological concerns, such as the relativity of human rights in the digital space, and introduces new conceptual frameworks such as the equilibrium of relative rights thesis. The chapter highlights discrepancies in how rights, such as privacy and dignity, manifest online compared with offline, arguing that these differences necessitate a rethinking of legal frameworks. The chapter challenges the traditional notion of absolute human rights, arguing that digital environments introduce a relativity that shifts the balance between competing rights (e.g., privacy versus freedom of expression).

Building on the analogy from quantum mechanics, we can ask whether certain human rights exist in a shared state. This would mean, for instance, whether the right to privacy exists in a shared state with the right to freedom of expression. Or, whether the right to reputation – leaving aside the issue whether such a self-standing right can be justified – exists in a shared state with the right of access to information. If the premise of such a shared state is correct, then it would follow that change in the scope and meaning of one right (particle) in this shared state leads to a simultaneous change in the opposite direction in the other right (particle). After transposition into a new domain, the features of a human rights idea, or characteristics of some offline traditional right, may appear in a higher spectrum than in the traditional setting. We notice wide variance between the meaning of freedom of expression offline and online, since offline it can rarely be justified as an absolute right, whereas online practice shows a duality: the parallel possibility of relativity and absoluteness.