As part of its efforts to promote global norms that seek to prevent and limit state-sponsored restrictions to human rights online, the Freedom Online Coalition (FOC) has issued a Joint Statement on Internet Censorship.
In it, the FOC expresses deep concern about the growing trend of state-sponsored Internet censorship, which challenges Coalition’s goals of protecting and promoting human rights online and protecting and extending an open and interoperable Internet, as affirmed in the FOC’s Tallinn Agenda.
To address this trend, the FOC calls upon governments to refrain from content restrictions on the Internet that violate international human rights law and to create an enabling environment for free expression and access to information online. Furthermore, it calls upon all stakeholders “to work together toward a shared approach – firmly grounded in respect for international human rights law – that aims to evaluate, respond to, and if necessary, remedy state-sponsored efforts to restrict, moderate, or manipulate online content, and that calls for greater transparency of private Internet companies’ mediation, automation, and remedial policies.”
The FOC encourages all Internet stakeholders to take note of and endorse this statement, and invites states that support an open and interoperable Internet to apply to join the FOC.
The statement will be formally introduced and presented at the upcoming FOC Open Forum session at RightsCon 2018, taking place on Wednesday 16 May, 17:15-18:15.
You can read the joint statement here.
