The Global Network Initiative (GNI) team appreciated the opportunity to engage with many of our members and collaborators at this year’s RightsCon in Taipei, Taiwan. RightsCon is an important annual tech and human rights conference, organized by our friends at Access Now. GNI has participated in every RightsCon since its inception in 2011.
Throughout the week, GNI staff organized, facilitated, and spoke at a number of sessions and events across four themes.
GNI hosted a workshop on the side of RightsCon with Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs to explore the complex intersection of online harms, content regulation, and online “safe harbor” principles in Taiwan. A distinguished panel discussed international best practices, the potential human rights implications of the current fractured Taiwanese regulatory framework, and what a rights-respecting approach to intermediary liability could look like in practice.
GNI hosted two closed sessions intended to build connections between the fields of trust and safety and human rights to protect user rights; one in partnership with the Trust & Safety Foundation (TSF), and the other with the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership (DTSP). Both sessions emphasized the importance of meaningful engagement between civil society and company practitioners, drawing on our prior, related workshop and tabletop exercise.
In partnership with GNI NGO member the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA), and two digital rights organizations, Civil Internet Policy Initiative and MediaNet, GNI shared lessons on advancing human rights within tech companies in Central Asia. The workshop focused on research-based advocacy strategies conducted under the Greater Internet Freedom project, and opened the floor for other organizations to share their reports and approaches to private sector engagement. Also in collaboration with WBA, as well as the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, GNI co-facilitated a session on improving tech company responses to human rights allegations.
At a session hosted by Microsoft, GNI shared insights on the human rights implications of private sector implementation of the UN Global Digital Compact (GDC), calling attention to the importance of the GDC being implemented through an inclusive and multistakeholder process and in a way that supports key internet governance processes including the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and WSIS+20. We also co-hosted a session with GNI NGO member Global Partners Digital and other stakeholders to strategize on the UN WSIS+20 process, aiming to ensure continued and improved multistakeholder internet governance. As co-chair to the Freedom Online Coalition Advisory Network (FOC-AN), GNI echoed these messages and collaborated with FOC governments at the FOC strategy coordination meeting held on the sidelines of RightsCon. GNI also spoke on a panel co-hosted by the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, EngageMedia, and Derechos Digitales on civil society participation in AI policymaking in Asia and Latin America.
One of the highlights of attending international conferences is the chance to engage with our members in-person. We attended numerous sessions where GNI members shared their expertise on topics like human rights due diligence for AI, transparency around government demands on tech companies, and the human rights implications of mandated risk assessments.
Additionally, GNI hosted a reception, bringing together members from all over the world, including many who we met for the first time. We also held our first quarter Board meeting at Yahoo!’s Tapiei offices on the day after RightsCon.
This is a difficult, yet critical, time for the human rights and tech community globally, as democracies backslide and civic space continues to close around the world. In particular, the recent upheavals to U.S. government funding have put a strain on the field. There’s much to learn from civil society organizations and human rights defenders that have operated and shown resilience in challenging contexts, particularly in global majority countries. We appreciated the space to be in community and collaborate at RightsCon at a key moment for the sector. We look forward to continuing to engage with our members and partners over the coming year as we collectively navigate the evolving field of digital rights and work to ensure that human rights are protected online.