26 EMBOLDENED OFFENDERS, ENDANGERED COMMUNITIES 4. States and international organizations should continue developing and strengthening norms to ensure the practice of internet shutdowns comes to an end. In the Pact for the Future and Global Digital Compact, adopted by consensus at the 2024 UN Summit of the Future, world leaders committed to “[r]efrain from internet shutdowns and measures that target internet access.” 106 This represents a significant normative win, and a highlevel affirmation of a decade of advocacy against internet shutdowns at intergovernmental forums. The UN SecretaryGeneral, Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies (ODET), High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and other key mandate holders should continue to advance this work both through ongoing norm development and through accountability and implementation. 5. Both communications platforms and governments must uphold their responsibility to maintain unencumbered access to a safe, rights-promoting online ecosystem. Authorities have continued to wield platform blocks107 to control the flow of information, often under the pretext of curbing the spread of misinformation and hateful or violent content. However, many of the largest social media platforms have decisively stepped back from their past commitments to limit the spread of harmful content on their platforms,108 enabling an increase in hate speech and misinformation that governments rightfully want to address. 106 107 • Tech companies must uphold their responsibilities to reduce human rights harms stemming from the use of their platforms and commit to rights-respecting practices consistently across all contexts, especially for communities in crisis.109 • At the same time, governments must adhere to international human rights law, work to tackle underlying causes of disinformation, and refrain from imposing platform blocks, which deny people their rights to free speech and access to vital information.110 United Nations (2024). Pact for the Future. https://www.un.org/en/summit-of-the-future/pact-for-the-future Platform blocks are a type of internet shutdown. See supra note 1. 108 Free Press (2023). How Social-Media Rollbacks Endanger Democracy Ahead of the 2024 Elections https://www.freepress.net/big-tech-backslide-report 109 Access Now (2022). Content governance in times of crisis: how platforms can protect human rights https://www.accessnow.org/publication/new-content-governance-in-crises-declaration/ 110 Access Now (2020). Guide: how to protect human rights in content governance. https://www.accessnow.org/guide/guide-how-to-protecthuman-rights-in-content-governance/; See also Access Now (2024). Access Now condemns the suspension of X in Brazil https://www.accessnow.org/press-release/access-now-condemns-the-suspension-of-x-in-brazil/