Tech Giants: Human Rights Risks and Frameworks

Abstract

The services and platforms of tech giants are embedded in the lives of billions of people. Concern at tech giants’ negative human rights impacts is growing and society’s trust in them is being corroded. Jeopardising tech giants’ social license to operate, this also carries significant business and investment risks. This paper maps relevant international human rights standards which pertain to tech giants' wide-ranging impacts on human rights. Besides workforce and other supply chain issues, major impacts are those linked to: the gathering, use and commercialisation of personal data; freedom of expression; facilitating the spread of hate speech, misinformation, political extremism, terrorism, electoral manipulation and the suppression of democratic dissent; the impacts of content moderation and encryption; discrimination and other human rights abuses resulting from algorithmic bias; and impacts on at-risk groups including children and human rights defenders.

Keywords: Human rights, tech giants, platforms, corporate responsibility to respect human rights, UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, responsible business conduct

JEL Classification: K29, K33, K30, K10, K20, F60, L86