FREEDOM ON THE NET 2024 The Struggle for Trust Online online campaigning, for example to fabricate statements by a political opponent. In the United States, Congress should direct the Federal Election Commission to pursue rulemaking to this effect, in line with the Federal Communications Commission’s pending rulemaking on AI use in campaign advertisements that appear in broadcast media. Companies The private sector has a responsibility to ensure that its products contribute to, and do not undermine, a diverse and reliable information space. Companies should invest in staff tasked with work related to public policy, information integrity, trust and safety, and human rights, including teams of regional and country specialists. These teams should collaborate closely with civil society groups around the world to understand the local impact of their companies’ products. Without such expertise, the private sector is ill-equipped to address harassment, abuse, and false and misleading information that can have serious offline consequences. Social media firms should also develop mechanisms for and expand researchers’ access to platform data, allowing for independent analysis of harassment, disinformation campaigns, and other trends online. Companies should continue to develop effective methods to watermark AI-generated content, which entails the use of a cryptographic signature. While not a silver-bullet solution, watermarking could be useful when combined with other labeling of AI-generated media for individual awareness, as well as coordination with civil society, academia, and technical experts on industry standards for documenting the provenance of specific content. When assessing how to appropriately enhance content provenance, companies should consider privacy risks for human rights defenders and other vulnerable users. As more government agencies, such as technical regulators and election management bodies, seek to engage with technology firms, companies should tailor their engagement based on an assessment of whether the bodies operate independently and without political interference, in consultation with in-country civil society. Companies should specifically adopt processes and procedures to ensure that engagement does not undermine free expression, access to information, due process, and other fundamental rights. For example, formal and informal demands for content removal should be thoroughly documented and evaluated to determine whether they are sufficiently protecting human rights. To combat political violence and support free and fair elections more broadly, technology platforms should develop standards for threat assessment and crisis planning. This includes addressing threats against election workers and responding to false election-related claims by promoting accurate information and meaningfully engaging with civil society, fact-checkers, and, as appropriate, election management bodies and government officials. Companies should dedicate adequate resources to both preelection and postelection activities, and ensure the smooth operation of escalation channels. 3. COMBAT DISPROPORTIONATE GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE Governments worldwide have passed disproportionate surveillance laws and can access a booming commercial market for surveillance tools, giving them the capacity to monitor the private communications of individuals inside and beyond their borders in violation of international human rights standards. The lack of data privacy safeguards in the United States and around the world exacerbates the harms of excessive government surveillance. 30 @freedomonthenet #FreedomOnTheNet