FREEDOM ON THE NET 2023 The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence not overbroad or discriminatory. Overreliance on large language models for higher-order tasks that require context and nuance, like writing content policy, should be treated with skepticism. The stakes of this wager are high, especially ahead of 2024 elections in pivotal countries and as AI-generated content grows more prevalent. The firing of regional and legal teams entails a loss of institutional knowledge on political parties, disinformation networks, and regulatory systems. Rolling back content policies intended to provide context for readers will weaken information integrity. And reduced platform transparency will limit civil society’s ability to analyze evolving censorship tactics and push for accountability. Ultimately, some companies may choose to further deprioritize policy development and enforcement outside of their perceived core markets. But decisions that maximize short-term profits while accepting negative human rights consequences will in practice create a more dangerous experience online, undermine a service’s competitive appeal, and threaten the strong rule-of-law environment on which all businesses depend. Ensuring that AI advances human rights online Technology cannot be a substitute for governance. Most AI models are highly opaque, dependent on the processing of billions of datapoints, and effectively under the control of a handful of companies that reveal little about their development and training. Their inscrutable structure is An effective defense of internet freedom requires not just developing AI governance systems, but also addressing long-standing threats to privacy, free expression, and access to information. 22 @freedomonthenet fundamentally at odds with democratic values such as transparency, proportionality, and accountability, and their information inputs are often hotbeds of potential bias. Companies that create or deploy AI systems, from the newest startups to the most established giants, should cultivate an understanding of previous efforts to strengthen platform responsibility, which have produced both successes and failures over the past decade. But given the private sector’s natural inclination to focus on profit generation, its AI products require supervision by an informed public, a global group of civil society organizations, and empowered regulators. Government regulation should be aimed at delivering more transparency, providing effective mechanisms of public oversight, and prioritizing the protection of human rights. When designed and used safely and fairly, AI can help people evade authoritarian censorship, counter false and misleading information, monitor elections to ensure that they are free and credible, and bolster documentation of human rights abuses. To bring about effective and rights-respecting AI governance, civil society should be included from the start. Nonprofit organizations, investigative reporters, and human rights activists have been indispensable players behind past wins for internet freedom. Among other contributions, they can build and sustain public pressure and spur action by legislators, regulators, and the industry. Policymakers and their civic and private-sector partners should take care not to lose momentum in protecting overall internet freedom, especially as AI technology augments the forces driving its multiyear decline. Indeed, to the extent that AI simply exacerbates existing problems associated with digital repression, existing solutions— ensuring that companies minimize the data they collect, reforming legal frameworks for surveillance and censorship, and strengthening information literacy and platform responsibility—should be thoroughly implemented. An effective defense of internet freedom requires not just developing AI governance systems, but also addressing long-standing threats to privacy, free expression, and access to information that have corroded the broader digital environment. #FreedomOnTheNet