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Download the plan and wherever it might be useful, privately or publicly refer to the 10 actions in the plan in your advocacy and campaigning efforts. #ReclaimOurRights
The plan
We call for a world in which technology is built in service of humanity and where our global public square protects human rights above profits.
We urge rights-respecting democracies to wake up to the existential threat of information ecosystems being distorted by a Big Tech business model fixated on harvesting people’s data and attention, even as it undermines serious journalism and polarises debate in society and political life.
When facts become optional and trust disappears, we will no longer be able to hold power to account. We need a public sphere where fostering trust with a healthy exchange of ideas is valued more highly than corporate profits and where rigorous journalism can cut through the noise.
We call on all rights-respecting democratic governments to:
1.
Require tech companies to carry out independent human rights impact assessments that must be made public as well as demand transparency on all aspects of their business – from content moderation to algorithm impacts to data processing to integrity policies.
2.
Protect citizens’ right to privacy with robust data protection laws.
3.
Publicly condemn abuses against the free press and journalists globally and commit funding and assistance to independent media and journalists under attack.
We call on the EU to:
4.
Be ambitious in enforcing the Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts so these laws amount to more than just ‘new paperwork’ for the companies and instead force them to make changes to their business model, such as ending algorithmic amplification that threatens fundamental rights and spreads disinformation and hate, including in cases where the risks originate outside EU borders.
5.
Urgently propose legislation to ban surveillance advertising, recognizing this practice is fundamentally incompatible with human rights.
6.
Properly enforce the EU General Data Protection Regulation so that people’s data rights are finally made reality.
7.
Include strong safeguards for journalists’ safety, media sustainability and democratic guarantees in the digital space in the forthcoming European Media Freedom Act.
8.
Protect media freedom by cutting off disinformation upstream. This means there should be no special exemptions or carve-outs for any organisation or individual in any new technology or media legislation. With globalised information flows, this would give a blank check to those governments and non-state actors who produce industrial scale disinformation to harm democracies and polarise societies everywhere.
9.
Challenge the extraordinary lobbying machinery, the astroturfing campaigns and recruitment revolving door between big tech companies and European government institutions.
We call on the UN to:
10.
Create a special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General focused on the Safety of Journalists (SESJ) who would challenge the current status quo and finally raise the cost of crimes against journalists.