RightsCon Toronto 2018

Governments, political parties, and certain non-state actors have increased dramatically their efforts to manipulate information on social media through the use of paid commentators, fake news, and political bots, with potentially devastating consequences for democracy and internet trust. According to the latest edition of Freedom of the Net, online disinformation and manipulation tactics played a role in elections in at least 18 countries over the past year alone, including the United States, damaging citizens’ ability to choose their leaders based on factual news and authentic debate.

At the same time, democratic governments and tech companies have struggled to come up with effective solutions that would effectively address the issue without infringing on free speech. In fact, Freedom House found that 14 countries actually instituted measures that restrict internet freedom in efforts to combat online manipulation.

In order to come closer to identifying solutions, this workshop will aim to address the following questions:
• What policies should democratic governments consider in order to combat the issue of manipulation, particularly from abroad and particularly during elections?
• What role should tech companies play in efforts to combat manipulation? Is self-regulation sufficient?
• Have current measures--such as social media companies partnering up with fact-checkers and flagging of content--been successful? Or are they just a tiny drop in the bucket—positive measures but not really making much difference overall?
• What can civil society and tech companies do, particularly in countries where it is their government employing manipulation tactics to stay in power?