What Can Social Media Do For Human Rights ?

               This post is a summary of two articles. The first with the incomplete title above was published at https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/what-can-social-media-platforms-do-for-human-rights/.The second publishe at https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/InternetFreedom.aspx

              Social media such as Twitter and Facebook have become essential to free expression in the digital age. From the Arab Spring to Turkey, to major electoral reform rallies, we've seen how movements around the world have used internet-based platforms to communicate, organize, and share critical information that impacts their lives. Now that platforms like Facebook have billions of users, the decisions that social media companies make impact free expression on a global scale. Social media platforms are increasingly where people connect with other online. As such, security agencies, especially in repressive countries, often rely on social media to force people, members of minority groups. journalists, activists, and others to reveal their social networks. With one password, sometimes revealed under torture, government authorities can clamp down on entire communities. Many human rights organizations have worked with platforms like Facebook to develop mechanisms to ensure the safety and security of people who are arrested and detained. At Access, our Digital Security Helpline works with platforms to help secure the social media accounts of users when it is necessary to protect human rights and safeguard communities. However, these platforms don't get it right all of the time. For example, Twitter is without a doubt one of the most important platforms for information in the 21st century. Yet Twitter revoked access to its API for the Netherlands-based Open State Foundation, which in 2010 created Politwoops, a valuable tool that lets the public see Tweets deleted by politicians. Another example is Facebook, which has run into trouble with its real name policy, which requires you to use your real name when you set up an account on Facebook, which negatively impacts huamn rights defenders, journalists, activists, and others. Through our work fighting for digital rights across the globe, we have heard, for example, that several Vietnamese writers and activists were flagged en masse, and disallowed from using pen names on Facebook. One activist, a mother with two sons in prison, had been using her Facebook account to campaign for their release. Every one of these activists were asked to verify their identities. Facebook unilaterally altered their accounts to list their legal names. Years of important and anonymous activism became  instantly linked with people's identities. 'Prohibition of anonymity online interferes with the right to freedom of expression. This encompasses the full exercise of the right to freedom of expression: the right to seek, receive, and impart information. Many at-risk users rely on Facebook to fulfill all three of these important precepts. But when people are forced to reveal their real identity their ability to exercise that right is threatened and their lives are placed in danger. Fortunately, European law already prohibits the use of real name policies. But the rest of the world is not so fortunate. We know that it is possible for tech companies to take the concerns of civil society seriously and not only respond to reasonable requests to improve their platforms, but also to take a proactive approach. As global internet platforms seek to expand further into our lives, we've seen worrying attacks on the Silicon Valley commitment to support freedom of expression. Policy decisions by tech companies affect expression on a mass scale. Civil society has constructive solutions. All that is required is for social media platforms to continue to listen, and to act.

            "I had no words to add, I just sat down for some minutes. I felt she wanted to spare me from listening, to horrors that many others preferred untold," wrote Rosebell Kagumire on her blog.  Rosebell, a human rights activist and multimedia journalist, wrote about her encounter with a woman at a medical center in northern Uganda. Rosebell's blog features commentaries and stories on political issues with a focus on women's rights in Uganda and the region. Her blog is very popular among people who are looking for an independent analysis of events not usually found in traditional media. Promoting human rights through social media, mobile communication and digital networks is not only Rosebell's objective but the goal of six other writers, bloggers and journalists, all human rights defenders in their countries, who have been nominated Internet Freedom Fellows by the U.S. Department of State. The seven activists gathered at the U.N. last June and shared their stories at a side event to the U.N. Human Rights Council entitled "The Human Voice of Freedom: The Internet and Human Rights". Along with highly experts in the field of social media, they talked about their work in protecting human rights using social media and discussed the importance of a free internet to the promotion of human rights and freedom of expression. "We have to be creative in opening up ways of communicating so that we can still get the message out," said Aung San Thar, a video journalist for the "Democratic Voice of Burma", an independent media organization promoting human rights and freedom of expression in Myanmar. In countries where the government has monopoly over the media, I work to offer alternative information and other points of view", said Henda Chennaoui, a jornalist and blogger widely followed on Facebook in Tunisia. Other Internet Freedom Fellows include Wael Abbas, a blogger and human rights activist from Egypt whose online writings have brought awareness about important human rights issues in his country; Wen Yunchao from China and Andreas Harsono, from Indonesia, prominent writer, human rights activist whose blog is particularlypopular with young users in the city of Jakarta. "Around the world people using new media in the call for freedom, transparency and greater self-determination. We must always remember that it is not the tools, but the courageous people who use them, who are the human voice of freedom," said Ambassador Eileen Donahoe, U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council.