This isn't really 'catching up' in the way you say. The UN declaration of human rights already says "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.".
This move by the UN seems a deliberate point to ensure 'the internet' cannot be excluded from these bounds. I'm not sure the USA has yet been so explicit.
As a side point for educative purposes only - the US bill of rights was not the first to enshrine freedom of speech and press for a country - that was the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (though both built on the English bill of rights, which enshrined freedom of speech for parliamentarians).
> the US bill of rights was not the first to enshrine freedom of speech
No, of course not. We all get our ideas from somewhere. Much of American law and concepts come from English common law. The English picked it up from the Romans and Germans. So on and so forth.
However, the US bill of rights is certainly the longest lasting. It is my understanding that the US constitution is the oldest constitution that is still in effect.
I don't know why you got voted down because you are correct.
The English common law right of free speech exists to this day and has (largely) not been supplanted. It exists in many countries that use English common law as a base.
Enshrining it in a constitution was new, perhaps, but then the idea of a constitution was new. The UK still doesn't have a constitution.
This move by the UN seems a deliberate point to ensure 'the internet' cannot be excluded from these bounds. I'm not sure the USA has yet been so explicit.
As a side point for educative purposes only - the US bill of rights was not the first to enshrine freedom of speech and press for a country - that was the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (though both built on the English bill of rights, which enshrined freedom of speech for parliamentarians).