RightsCon Toronto 2018

Why "forget the President?" Because from free expression to physical safety, company decisions around policy, design, and enforcement today can affect people’s lives as much as decisions made by elected officials. That’s why civil society has started to engage with companies as if they were elected bodies. Today, advocates from organizations all over the world- but especially from the United States- are trying to communicate with companies about vulnerable users, data use policies, content enforcement, and more.

In this workshop, company representatives, advocates, and activists will talk about the process of tech company advocacy- how it works, case studies on
successes and failures, and critiques- including how this process
centers voices from the United States, and how we can do better at avoiding this problem. The goal is to provide activists and advocates with a better idea of the who, what, why, and how of this type of work, and to provide companies with a better understanding of why we're doing it and what it costs in terms
of time, trauma, and more.