Freedom House Companies Companies should commit to respecting the rights of people who use their platforms or services, and to addressing any adverse impact that their products might have on human rights. The Global Network Initiative’s Principles provide concrete recommendations on how to do so. Companies should support the accessibility of anticensorship technologies, including by making them more affordable, and resist government orders to shut down internet connectivity or ban digital services. Service providers should use all available legal channels to challenge content removal requests—whether official or informal—that would violate international human rights standards, particularly when they relate to the accounts of human rights defenders, civil society activists, journalists, or other at-risk individuals. If companies cannot resist such demands in full, they should ensure that any restrictions or disruptions are as limited as possible in duration, geographic scope, and type of content affected. Companies should thoroughly document government demands internally and notify people who use their platforms as to why connectivity or content may be restricted, especially in countries where government actions lack transparency. When faced with a choice between a ban of their services and complying with censorship orders, companies should bring strategic legal cases that challenge government overreach, in consultation or partnership with civil society. 2. DEFEND INFORMATION INTEGRITY The potential consequences of false, misleading, and incendiary content are especially grave during election periods, underscoring the need to protect information integrity. Efforts to address the problem should start well before campaigning begins and continue long after the last vote is cast. Governments Governments should adopt a whole-of-society approach to fostering a high-quality, diverse, and trustworthy information space. The Global Declaration on Information Integrity Online identifies best practices for safeguarding the information ecosystem, to which governments should adhere. For example, the declaration highlights the need to protect freedom of expression and address false or misleading information that targets and affects women, LGBT+ people, people with disabilities, and Indigenous people. It also underscores the importance of working with other initiatives designed to enhance information integrity, such as the Forum on Information and Democracy. Laws aimed at increasing platform responsibility as described above—such as those that boost transparency, provide platform data to vetted researchers, and safeguard free expression—are pivotal to countering threats to information integrity. Governments should also support independent online media and empower ordinary people with the tools they need to identify false or misleading information and to navigate complex media environments. They should proactively and directly engage with their constituencies to disseminate credible information and build trust. In addition, election management bodies and/ or government officials should seek out trusted community messengers from specific populations who can share reliable information. Governments should support the work of independent civil society organizations that conduct fact-checking efforts, civic education initiatives, and digital literacy training, as well as those that focus on human rights and democracy work more broadly. Governments should set strong rules on how generative artificial intelligence (AI) can be used in political campaigns. Policymakers should require the labeling of campaign advertisements featuring AI-generated images, audio, or video. Policymakers should also evaluate how to prohibit the use of AI-generated media for manipulative or deceptive purposes in @freedomhouse freedomhouse.org 29