When American Companies Moderate Global Content

The Promise Institute for Human Rights and Institute for Technology, Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law present a series on Global Digital Rights Challenges.

Alternating Thursdays: June 17, 2021 – August 12, 2021

July 1, 12pm PT Session: When American Companies Moderate Global Content

America exports many things, but its content moderation standards may be the most important. Activists and concerned citizens the world over use social media as a microphone to connect, mobilize and push for change – which makes the content rules that online platforms set and enforce enormously influential to shaping the global discourse.

However, because these rules are often designed based on U.S. sensibilities and priorities, they can have an adverse impact on globally marginalized communities. Platforms can also be subject to pressure from governments, including those with poor human rights records, to crack down on dissent and opposition.

In this session, Promise Institute Assistant Director Jess Peake will talk with Marwa Fatafta, MENA Policy Manager at Access Now, about the effect that the decisions of American platforms has on censorship of activists in the Middle East and North Africa, and how such actions impact fundamental human rights, censors dissent, and erases history.

• Speaker: Marwa Fatafta, MENA Policy Manager at Access Now
• Moderator: Jess Peake, Promise Institute for Human Rights

Register at globaldigitalrightschallenges.eventbrite.com

About the series:

Around the world, repressive governments are seeking new and innovative ways to port censorship to the online space, while private sector tech companies increasingly find themselves responsible for making policy on the counters of global speech. Here at home, digital technologies have also become the latest front for debates on systemic racism, and the potential for new technologies to entrench patterns of discrimination. This series, which features global activists on the frontlines of these debates, will examine the pressing digital rights challenges manifesting around the world.