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Moderate Globally Impact Locally: Content Moderation in Social Media in Latin America: A promise to consumers
Around the world, intermediary liability rules are coming under close scrutiny. But what makes the Latin American context unique is that, unlike the United States and Europe, there are no settled rules governing the platforms’ legal responsibility for the content they host. No Latin American country has passed legislation providing online intermediaries, such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, with blanket immunity analogous to the Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act. Moreover, a general law regarding intermediary liability is absent in most jurisdictions, with the exception of
Moderate Globally Impact Locally: Tackling Social Media’s Hate Speech Problem in India
On 11th August 2020, an offensive Facebook post about Prophet Muhammad played a significant role in inciting violent clashes in Bengaluru in India, the worst that the city has seen in recent history. Unfortunately, this incident is not an isolated one. Hate speech and misinformation propagated through platforms like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp has resulted in mob violence, lynching, communal riots, and claimed many innocent lives in India. Facebook has come under particular scrutiny recently. An article published in the Wall Street Journal has alleged that Facebook India’s Public Policy
Moderate Globally Impact Locally: Social media in Latin America, Caught between a rock and a hard place
In January 2020, following informal reports of issues with protest-related content on social media, three Chilean organizations, Fundacion Datos Protegidos, the University of Chile and the Observatorio del Derecho a la Comunicación carried out a study investigating social media censorship between October 18 and November 22, 2019.
Submission to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, on the Draft Non-Personal Data Governance Framework
On 12 July 2020, an expert Committee set up by the federal Indian Ministry of Electronics & IT (“MEITY”) in 2019 released its recommendations on regulating Non-Personal Data (NPD). The Report by the Committee of Experts on Non-Personal Data Governance Framework proposes the creation of a separate “new national law” to govern NPD as well as the creation of a Non-Personal Data Authority (“NPDA”) which would have both an “enabling and enforcing role”. This Submission is in response to the nine-member Committee’s (“Committee”) call for feedback through a public consultation. The Submission was
Moderate Globally Impact Locally: Content Moderation Is Particularly Hard in African Countries
Until last year, a majority of Sudanese had lived their entire lives under the presidency of Omar al-Bashir. Africa has 16 of the 48 longest-serving leaders in the world, including the world’s longest-serving nonroyal leader, Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has been in power since 1979. These regimes also share a common feature of gross violations of human rights, including those regarding digital rights and freedom of expression online. But things are changing. On April 11, 2019, the people finally succeeded in dislodging al-Bashir’s regime after protracted mass
Moderate Globally Impact Locally: Digital technology as accelerant: Growth and Genocide in Myanmar
Every person in Myanmar above the age of 10 has lived part, if not most, of their life under a military dictatorship characterized by an obsession with achieving autonomy from international influences. Before the economic and political reforms of the past decade, Myanmar was one of the most isolated nations in the world. The digital revolution that has reshaped nearly every aspect of human life over the past half-century was something the average Myanmar person had no personal experience with. Recent reforms brought an explosion of high hopes and technological access, and Myanmar underwent a