Platform Accountability and Human Rights: A Rule-of-Law Checklist

Published by Access Now, this new report responds to states’ efforts to introduce platform regulation frameworks (like the EU’s Digital Services Act, for example). Many such laws aimed at regulating platforms turn into tools of oppression, as Access Now has documented extensively. To help ensure that policymakers seek platform accountability respecting international human rights standards and the rule of law, the report offers a checklist consisting of five principles: 1) Ensuring institutional checks and balances of state power; 2) Safeguarding an independent and impartial judiciary; 3) Establishing transparent and good governance; 4) Protecting and enabling free and safe civic space; 5) Establishing and adequately enforcing data protection principles before regulating online platforms.