Miranda Sissons on Facebook’s First Human Rights Policy

On March 16th, social media giant Facebook released its first human rights policy. Given the multiple challenges the company faces on a range of human rights issues, the announcement has generated great interest and questions about how it will be implemented. Few companies have an impact on society as vast as Facebook does. By offering a social network that brings together 2.8 billion users, it reaches more people than the population of China and India put together. While it offers its service for free, it gets access to users’ data – their images, words, likes, and dislikes – and tailors content to ensure users return again and again.

Ostensibly to safeguard human rights, it has removed a sitting US President from its platform, suspended Myanmar's army from its pages, and spotted suspicious activity by Chinese interests against Uyghur activists. At the same time, human rights groups and UN experts have accused the company of allowing its platform to be used to facilitate mass violence, as well as permitting the dissemination of conspiracy theories, misinformation, and promoting hatred.

Miranda Sissons, formerly of the International Centre for Transitional Justice and Human Rights Watch, joined Facebook in 2019 as the company’s first-ever Director for Human Rights. Sissons spoke with IHRB's Salil Tripathi about why the company has developed the new policy, what it means, and how it will be implemented. In a wide-ranging conversation that also deals with some of the thorny dilemmas the company faces, Sissons points out the limits of what she feels Facebook can and cannot do; where it can push back on government demands to take down content and those orders that it must comply with; and how it hopes to work with experts to protect freedom of expression and privacy online.

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Editor: Deborah Sagoe, IHRB's Communications Coordinator