Human rights in the age of platforms

Foreword by David Kaye.

"We make them dance": surveillance capitalism, the rise of instrumentarian power, and the threat to human rights / Shoshana Zuboff -- Digital transformations, informed realities and human conduct / Mikkel Flyverbom & Glen Whelan -- Representation, accountability, and equality in big data and machine learning / Anja Bechmann -- Situating personal information: privacy in the algorithmic age / Jens-Erik Mai -- Online advertisement as a shaper of public communication / Fernando Bermejo -- Moderating the public sphere / Jillian York & Ethan Zuckerman -- Rights talk: in the kingdom of online giants / Rikke Frank Jørgensen -- The human rights obligations of non-state actors / Agnes Callamard -- The council of Europe and internet intermediaries: a case-study of tentative posturing / Tarlach McGonagle -- The privacy disconnect / Joris van Hoboken -- Regulating private harm online: content regulation under human rights law / Molly Land.

"What are the human rights implications and effects of a commercialized public sphere? Private companies mediate most of our time online. Internet companies manage the web-based public infrastructure, the public sphere, and public life. As such, their practices have significant consequences for human rights, both in terms of the opportunities they offer and the potential harm they can cause. At the same time, human rights law is state-centric in nature and holds no direct obligations for companies. This book takes the necessary step of examining the role, responsibilities and practices of these private actors vis-à-vis human rights standards and norms. Part of public life and discourse has always unfolded within commercial domains, but the current situation is different in scope and character. In the online realm the vast majority of social interactions, discussions, expressions, controversies, etc. take place within platforms and services provided for by private companies. Moreover, the communications that people provide when socializing online are an essential part of the online business model, used to generate revenue. As such, it is a fundamentally different business model than that of mass media in the pre-internet age. Where newspaper revenue is linked to selling a relatively well-known product, the revenue model of a social media platform is intrinsically linked to the communications, behavior and social life of its users in a way that is largely invisible to the user. The aim of this edited collection is to examine and discuss these developments in light of their implications for human rights protection"-- Provided by publisher.