Freedom Forum has joined the international campaign, prodding the global tech giants Facebook and Google to be transparent regarding political advertising on their platforms. It has signed an open letter to the chiefs of these tech giants, reminding them of equal transparency standard. The key ADVOCACY points are: We believe it is necessary for both Google and Facebook to: • Accelerate the expansion of full transparency tools to all countries where you operate to ensure that the least favoured countries benefit from the same level of transparency as the most favoured countries • Develop, and make public, a plan of action setting out commitments and related timescales to roll out full transparency tools globally • Disclose the full array of criteria, both past and present, used to select countries qualifying for higher transparency standards FULL TEXT 28th January 2021 Dear Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Pichai, In the past few years, you have pioneered important transparency tools to help your platform users understand, learn about and contextualise the political advertising they see. We agree that advertiser verification processes and ad repositories are key safeguards against online manipulation and misinformation. However, we are saddened to observe that these benefits have not been equally distributed among your global user base. Each platform operates fluctuating and often widely differing transparency standards for different countries. While some users benefit from seeing political advertising in an ad repository, others do not. Where some users are offered detailed information about a political ad, others are not. There are no legitimate or otherwise publicly disclosed reasons justifying this difference in treatment. The combined effect of these inconsistent policies is to create a two-tiered user base within each platform, with a wide regulatory gap separating the transparency haves and have-nots. We first highlighted these problems in 2019. While some progress has been made since, we are disappointed to conclude that the transparency divide persists. Online transparency should not be a privilege of the few, but the right of all. To that end, the changes we believe are necessary are as follows: • Accelerate the expansion of full transparency tools to all countries where you operate to ensure that the least favoured countries benefit from the same level of transparency as the most favoured countries • Develop, and make public, a plan of action setting out commitments and related timescales to roll out full transparency tools globally • Disclose the full array of criteria, both past and present, used to select countries qualifying for higher transparency standards The above changes, which we believe to be fair and reasonable, are only a starting point to begin to correct the current platform-created inequality between users. By contrast, the benefits are conclusive: heightened transparency standards for millions of users worldwide, and increased legitimacy of online political advertising for the sake of fair and informed decision-making by voters. We urge you to take responsibility as two of the most influential platforms in online political campaigning, and empower users and voters with heightened ads transparency. Yours sincerely, Access Now Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC) Aliansi Jurnalis Independen/Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) Amnesty International ApTI Article 19 Artículo 19 México y Centroamérica Asociación por los Derechos Civiles Asociación para una Ciudadanía Participativa, ACI Participa Associação Data Privacy Brasil de Pesquisa Asociación para el Progreso de las Comunicaciones (APC) Association for International Affairs (AMO) in Prague Association pour le Developpement Integré et la Solidarité Interactive (ADISI-C) Citizen D Centre for Independent Journalism Malaysia (CIJ-M) Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) Civil Liberties Union for Europe Bytes for All (B4A) Datos Protegidos Defend Democracy Dejusticia Democracy Reporting International (DRI) Derechos Digitales Digital Rights Foundation ELSAM Electronic Frontier Finland Electronic Frontier Norway epicenter.works EU Disinfo Lab Fundación Acceso Fundación Huaira de Quito-Ecuador Fundación Internet Bolivia Fundación Karisma Freedom Forum Free Media Movement (FMM) Global Forum for Media Development Global Witness Hiperderecho Homo Digitalis Instituto Brasileiro de Defesa do Consumidor InternetLab Intervozes - Coletivo Brasil de Comunicação Social IPANDETEC Centroamérica Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) Laboratorio de Datos y Sociedad (DATYSOC) Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) Media Institute of Southern Africa MISA- Zimbabwe Media Matters for Democracy Merit Legal Advocacy & Human Rights Initiative (MELAHRI) OBSERVACOM Paradigm Initiative (PIN) Privacy International R3D: Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales SFLC.in Stiftung Neue Verantwortung (SNV) Sursiendo, Comunicación y Cultura Digital AC TEDIC The Tor Project Unwanted Witness Usuarios Digitales Venezuela Inteligente Who Targets Me World Wide Web Foundation Xnet ----------
Freedom Forum is a prominent non-governmental organization in Nepal dedicated to institutionalizing democracy, protecting and promoting human rights, press freedom, freedom of expression, right to information, promoting audit accountability, open and accountable budget, public finance reforms, citizen engagement in public finance management and citizen participation in audit. Established in February 2005, the organization emerged in response to the political turmoil following Former King Gyanendra’s coup dated February 1, 2005, which imposed severe restrictions on media and democratic rights. A group of media professionals, legal experts, and academics founded Freedom Forum to safeguard Nepal’s hard-earned democratic freedoms during this repressive period.
