Human rights attorney l International law, policy, advocacy and strategic litigation l Currently Senior Director for Law and Policy at ARTICLE 19
The civil war in Sudan is rarely given attention in the media, one year after it started. This ‘silent war’ has had long-term and devastating consequences. ARTICLE 19's findings show that the violations of the right to freedom of expression have further increased over the past year - from attacks against the media and journalists, internet shutdowns or manipulation of information. One of the things that has escaped scrutiny so far is the responsibility of online platforms. In this conflict, major social media published no information about steps taken in response to the conflict on their platforms (as compared to some of those related to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war in Israel and Palestine - albeit those have been strongly criticized). So we urge the platforms to take their responsibility seriously. This includes disclosing the resources they allocated to their content moderation efforts to account for the increased online and offline risks during conflicts, the level of engagement with humanitarian organisations and local civil society groups on the ground (taking into consideration the safety risks of the latter), and whether there are any rapid response systems to enable human rights groups to escalate urgent matters to the platforms and take swift action when user safety is at risk. We also remind internet service providers and telecommunication companies operating in Sudan, including MTN, Zain Group, Sudatel Telecom Group, Ltd, or Canar, of their human rights responsibilities. These include takinge all possible measures to prevent a shutdown that they have been asked to implement from proceeding and prevent or mitigate to the extent possible adverse human rights impacts. They should also publicly disclose details about any shutdown orders they receive. #Sudan #war #platforms #socialmedia #telcos #responsibilities #humanrights #freedomofexpression #connectivity https://lnkd.in/eYsrj5Af
Director of Art for Human Rights (formerly Art for Amnesty)
7moIt is not media appealing for sure. :-(