United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk in an open letter sent to the new Twitter owner, Elon Musk, urged the billionaire businessman “to guarantee respect for human rights”. The letter, reads the release, refers in particular to the news about the dismissal of the entire human rights team of the group: “It is not an encouraging start”, underlined Turk, highlighting that “Twitter is part of a global revolution. which has transformed the way we communicate “.
For Turk, “like all businesses, Twitter needs to understand the harms associated with its platform and take steps to address it. Respecting our shared human rights should set the barriers to the use and evolution of the platform. In short, there I urge you to ensure that human rights are central to running Twitter under your leadership, ”the High Commissioner stressed.
Türk urged Twitter “to defend the rights to privacy and freedom of expression as far as possible”. For the High Commissioner “freedom of speech is not a passport: the viral spread of harmful disinformation, such as that observed during the Covid-19 pandemic in relation to vaccines, causes damage in the real world. Twitter has a responsibility to avoid amplify content that damages the rights of other people “. For Türk, “the spread of hate speech on social media has had horrific consequences for thousands of people. Twitter’s content moderation policies should continue to ban this type of hate on the platform. Every effort should be made to promptly remove this type of content “. Furthermore, for Türk, it is necessary to “protect privacy”.