UN rights chief Volker Turk on Saturday urged Twitter’s new proprietor Elon Musk to make respect for human rights central to the social community after he sacked round half the corporate’s workers.
Stories of Musk shedding the platform’s whole human rights workforce had been “not, from my perspective, an encouraging begin”, Turk mentioned in an open letter.
The United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights mentioned he was writing with “concern and apprehension about our digital public sq. and Twitter’s function in it”.
He warned in opposition to propagating hate speech and misinformation and highlighted the necessity to shield person privateness.
Musk, the richest individual on the earth, took management of the platform every week in the past in a contentious deal.
After finishing his mammoth $44 billion acquisition, Musk shortly set about dissolving Twitter’s board and sacking its chief govt and prime managers.
Twitter on Friday fired roughly half of its 7,500-strong workforce.
“Like all corporations, Twitter wants to know the harms related to its platform and take steps to deal with them,” wrote Turk.
“Respect for our shared human rights ought to set the guardrails for the platform’s use and evolution. Briefly, I urge you to make sure human rights are central to the administration of Twitter beneath your management.”
Turk posted the open letter on Twitter, the place he has greater than 25,000 followers.
Turk, an Austrian longtime UN official who took up his submit because the UN rights chief on October 17, spelt out some elementary human rights ideas, urging Musk to place them on the coronary heart of Twitter’s administration going ahead.
‘Horrific’ penalties
Turk urged Twitter to face up for the rights to privateness and free expression to the fullest extent attainable, beneath related legal guidelines, and to transparently report on authorities pressures that will infringe these rights.
However he mentioned free speech “shouldn’t be a free move”, saying that the viral unfold of dangerous disinformation, as seen in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, resulted in real-world harms.
“Twitter has a accountability to keep away from amplifying content material that ends in harms to folks’s rights,” Turk mentioned.
“There isn’t a place for hatred that incites discrimination, hostility or violence on Twitter.
“Hate speech has unfold like wildfire on social media… with horrific, life-threatening penalties.”
Twitter ought to due to this fact proceed to bar such hatred on the platform, whereas each effort ought to be made to take away such content material promptly, mentioned Turk.
He additionally mentioned free speech trusted the efficient safety of privateness.
“It’s critical that Twitter chorus from invasive person monitoring and amassing associated knowledge and that it resist, to the fullest extent attainable beneath relevant legal guidelines, unjustified requests from governments for person knowledge,” Turk mentioned.
He mentioned analysis was important to know the impression of social media on societies, and due to this fact urged Musk to take care of entry to Twitter’s knowledge by means of its open utility programming interfaces.
Lastly, he confused that Twitter ought to have content material moderation capability in all languages and contexts, not simply in the USA or in English-language content material.