UN Urges Musk to Ensure Human Rights Are Central to Management of Twitter

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk on Saturday issued an open letter to the brand new CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk and urged him to “ensure human rights are central to the management of Twitter,” following the stories of layoff of complete human rights crew of the microblogging web site.

“In short, I urge you to ensure human rights are central to the management of Twitter under your leadership,” Türk mentioned in a letter.

“Twitter is part of a global revolution that has transformed how we communicate. But I write with concern and apprehension about our digital public square and Twitter’s role in it,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights acknowledged within the letter.

“Like all companies, Twitter needs to understand the harms associated with its platform and take steps to address them. Respect for our shared human rights should set the guardrails for the platform’s use and evolution,” he added.

In his letter, Türk urged Twitter to face up for the rights to privateness and free expression to the total extent potential, underneath related legal guidelines, and to transparently report on authorities requests that may infringe these rights.

The viral unfold of dangerous disinformation, like that seen in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to vaccines, ends in real-world hurt. Twitter has a accountability to keep away from amplifying content material that ends in hurt to different individuals’s rights.

In the letter, he additional mentioned that there is no such thing as a room for the hatred that incites discrimination, hostility or violence on Twitter.

“Research is essential to better understand social media’s impact on our societies. Maintain access to Twitter’s data through its open application programming interfaces (APIs),” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights mentioned.

Free speech relies on the efficient safety of privateness. It is important that Twitter refrains from invasive person monitoring and amassing associated knowledge and that it resists, to the fullest extent potential underneath relevant legal guidelines, unjustified requests from governments for person knowledge.

Former Twitter Human Rights Counsel Shannon Raj Singh shared the information that the corporate’s human rights crew was eradicated Friday.

“Yesterday was my last day at Twitter: the entire Human Rights team has been cut from the company. I am enormously proud of the work we did to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights, to protect those at-risk in global conflicts & crises including Ethiopia,” he tweeted.

Elon Musk began shedding Twitter staff on Friday. As per an unsigned inside memo seen by The Verge, Twitter staff have been notified within the electronic mail that the layoffs have been set to start. Musk is anticipated to chop roughly half of Twitter’s roughly 7,500-person workforce. The layoff got here per week after Musk turned the Twitter proprietor.