The UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights has put out a report on online content regulation. In it, David Kaye, the Rapporteur, recommended that human rights standards should be the foundation of all content regulation activities by governments and private companies that operate social media and other public platforms. The Special Rapporteur is an independent expert who is appointed by the UN's Office for the Human Rights Commissioner. The report says that companies need to be highly transparent about 'content actions', where they suspend users, delete posts, or disclose user data in response to government requests. "Given their impact on the public sphere, companies must open themselves up to public accountability," the report says. On government laws The report warns against "broadly worded restrictive laws" against content featuring defamation, false news, propaganda and extremism. Such broad legislation can be used by the government to suppress legitimate discourse, the report said. The Indian government's track record of censorship in films and online content illustrates the point Kaye makes. From the now-discontinued 66-A to the IT Act, broad legislation allows the government to regulate and censor, at its discretion, a wide variety of content. This is not a conducive environment for freedom of expression, the report said. Additionally, fines on companies that fail to interpret these laws to act independently to remove content on their own is also a hindrance to free speech, the report says. "Such rules [that require companies to act to remove content] involve risks to freedom of expression,…
