April 2020] THE "WEAPONIZATION" OF FACEBOOK 821 corporations criminally liable for human rights abuses in the past.52 However, such theories have not been extended to social media companies. Thus, it remains unclear whether such companies could be held criminally liable under international law for human rights abuses that occur as a result of user engagement on their platforms. II. CRIMINAL COMPLICITY IN THE CONTEXT OF HUMAN RIGHTS A fairly new concept, corporate criminal liability evolved from the recognition that corporations wielded significant influence in the world and were capable of committing human rights abuses with impunity.53 At the World Economic Forum in 1999, then-U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan proposed a “global compact” among the world’s business community to uphold and promote nine UN principles.54 Annan specifically called on world businesses to make sure their own companies were “not . . . complicit in human rights abuses.”55 As companies began investing and sourcing from areas outside their home countries, their scope of liability also expanded and, as Annan raised, created “an imbalance between the economic, social and political realms.”56 Annan’s proposal lead to the eventual creation of the Global Compact in July 2000, which outlined the beginnings of corporate social responsibility.57 Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General, Professor John Ruggie, advanced this theory by further outlining the scope of corporate responsibility.58 His efforts culminated in the creation of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.59 These guidelines, unanimously endorsed by the Human Rights Council in 2011,60 state that “‘business enterprises should . . . [t]reat the risk of causing or contributing to gross human rights abuses as a legal compliance issue wherever they operate.’”61 While merely recommendations, the Global Compact and the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights represent the international 52. See, e.g., in the United Kingdom, Vendata Res. PLC v. Lungowe [2019] UKSC 20 (appeal taken from Eng.); in France, Sudip Kar-Gupta & Gilles Guillaume, Lafarge Faces Legal Complaint Over Actions in Syria, REUTERS (Nov. 15, 2016, 8:19 AM), https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-lafarge/lafarge-faceslegal-complaint-over-actions-in-syria-idUKKBN13A24F; in the United States, Alien’s Action for Tort, 28 U.S.C. § 1350 (2018). 53. See Press Release, Kofi Annan, U.N. Secretary-General, Secretary-General Proposes Global Compact on Human Rights, Labour, Environment, in Address to World Economic Forum in Davos (Jan. 31, 1999), https://www.un.org/press/en/1999/19990201.sgsm6881.html. 54. Id. 55. Id. 56. Id. 57. Id. 58. JENNIFER ZERK, CORPORATE LIABILITY FOR GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: TOWARDS A FAIRER AND MORE EFFECTIVE SYSTEM OF DOMESTIC LAW REMEDIES 13 (2013) (preparing a report for U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights). 59. See id. 60. See OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMM’R, supra note 15. 61. Zerk, supra note 58, at 13 (quoting OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMM’R, supra note 15, at 25).