International Coalition of Rights Groups Call on Internet Infrastructure Providers to Avoid Content Policing

San Francisco—Internet infrastructure services—the heart of a secure and resilient internet where free speech and expression flows—should continue to focus their energy on making the web an essential resource for users and, with rare exceptions, avoid content policing. Such intervention often causes more harm than good, EFF and its partners said today.

EFF and an international coalition of 56 human and digital rights organizations from around the world are calling on technology companies to “Protect the Stack.” This is a global effort to educate users, lawmakers, regulators, companies, and activists about why companies that constitute basic internet infrastructure—such as internet service providers (ISPs), certificate authorities, domain name registrars, hosting providers, and more—and other critical services, such as payment processors, can harm users, especially less powerful groups, and put human rights at risk when they intervene to take down speech and other content. The same is true for many other critical internet services.

EFF today launched the Protect the Stack website at the Internet Governance Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The website introduces readers to “the stack,” and explains how content policing practices can and have caused risks to the human rights. It is currently available in English, Spanish, Arabic, French, German, Portuguese, Hebrew, and Hindi.

“Internet infrastructure companies help make the web a safe and robust space for free speech and expression,” said EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry. “Content-based interventions at the infrastructure level often cause collateral damage that disproportionately harms less powerful groups. So, except in rare cases, stack services should stay out of content policing.”

This article has been indexed from Deeplinks