Tech company responses and the UNGP ARTICLE 19 Example: Meta’s human rights impact assessments in Asia As part of its response to its failures in Myanmar, Meta commissioned an independent organisation to conduct a human rights impact assessment of its operations there. It subsequently made this assessment public along with its response. Since then, it has commissioned other national human rights impact assessments, publishing reports for Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.233 Human rights impact assessments are a crucial part of the due diligence called for in the UNGPs. It is best practice for tech companies to conduct such assessments regularly and to release them publicly. Unfortunately, however, Meta’s responses have been sporadic and reactive, rather than resulting from a proactive policy of running such assessments regularly in high-risk contexts as a preventative measure. Most notably, Meta declined to disclose its full impact assessment for India, which was commissioned in 2019. This is controversial and not in accordance with the UNGPs. The assessment was meant to be an independent evaluation of Meta’s role in the spread of hate speech and incitement to violence in India.234 Meta cited security concerns as a reason for not releasing the report,235 but if any part of the report posed a genuine threat to someone, that portion could easily have been redacted. Lack of sector-wide mobilisation and industry standards As shown by the case studies in this report, the fragmentation of the online space has complicated human rights impacts. A diversity of services is an overall positive for freedom of expression online, and the monopolistic behaviour of many tech companies should be condemned. However, addressing harmful speech across platforms is also a real challenge, as evidenced in Myanmar, where the military has responded to bans by rapidly creating new accounts and jumping platforms. The existence of ‘bad actors’ like Telegram, which has refused to engage seriously with harmful speech on its platform, highlights that action by one or a few companies is not enough. Similarly, in China, local companies which do not make human rights commitments can fill the gap left by exiting Western companies. ____________________________________________ 233 Meta, Our Impact: Meta Human Rights Impact Assessments. D. Brown and J. Bajoria, Meta and Hate Speech in India, Human Rights Watch, 21 July 2022. 235 ARTICLE 19, Meta: Transparency Vital for Protecting Human Rights in India and Palestine, 25 August 2022. 234 56