Free and fair elections are a cornerstone of democracy: a chance for us to speak out, be heard, and shape our collective future.

To do this, it is vital that we can access diverse and accurate sources of information, form and freely express our opinions, and choose our representatives without interference.

This Super Election Year, 4 billion people in over 50 countries are heading to the polls. Yet a quarter of the way through 2024, it’s clear that governments and political candidates are pulling out all the stops to prevent people from casting a free and informed vote – from deepfakes to disinformation campaigns, internet shutdowns, and hate speech against minorities.

The largest online platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, and TikTok) are uniquely placed to mitigate these challenges and safeguard democracy for all.

Their global reach means that information has never been more free: wherever we are in the world, we can use platforms to learn about political parties and candidates, to campaign for progressive change, and to share our opinions across borders.

But their reach also means that platforms wield an enormous amount of power over what we can see, say, and share – and many of the traditional safeguards to protect the fairness of elections are hard to apply online.

With great power comes great responsibility. Yet instead of using their power for good, platforms are washing their hands of their obligations (at best) and exacerbating the problems (at worst).

Amplifying false or polarising information.

Removing too much content – or moderating too little.

Not being transparent about their relationships with governments, electoral authorities, and political advertisers.

These failures pose a grave threat to election integrity, which could be disastrous for billions.

It doesn’t have to be this way – and, indeed, it shouldn’t.

Under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, online platforms have a responsibility to respect freedom of expression. These principles require platforms to identify and address any risks emanating from their practices or platforms that affect people’s right to freely participate in elections.

There’s still time for platforms to step up, take responsibility, and safeguard expression, information, and democracy for all.

Here’s how.

1. Prepare

Online platforms are failing to invest sufficient resources to manage the risks to peace and people’s safety during election time. Resources are typically allocated depending on the potential for profit, rather than on the basis of the human rights risks specific to each country.

Companies must:

• Conduct human rights due diligence prior to elections, and consider how conflict and violence could escalate – regardless of the size of a country or its markets.

• Analyse risks – such as existing ethnic tensions, low levels of digital literacy, or deepening inequalities – and provide sufficient measures to mitigate these risks.

• Invest enough money and time so that human reviewers and crisis-response teams are properly trained, have the necessary language skills, and receive sufficient support to ensure that quality information can be accessed by all – without exceptions.
  

2. Be open, be transparent, be engaged

Platforms have responsibilities to conduct human rights due diligence and acquire an in-depth understanding of the election dynamics in the countries they operate in – including risks regarding online hate speech and disinformation, and implications of specific government censorship requests.

This requires continuous engagement with independent external stakeholders. Yet such engagement is notoriously lacking, particularly in countries that they do not see as strategically important.

Platforms must:

• Talk – and listen – to not only governments and politicians but also civil society: the groups representing people’s needs.

• Be transparent about the steps they take to help secure safe and well-informed elections: from hiring experts and establishing bespoke election centres to removing harmful content.

3. Ensure that recommender systems and content-moderation practices promote access to diverse viewpoints and do not silence any voices

Everyone must have access to diverse viewpoints about elections and democratic processes. To enable this, platforms must:

• Invest resources in trained and skilled human content reviewers.

• Ensure content-moderation policies and practices are in line with international freedom of expression standards, especially those relating to political speech, disinformation, and hate speech.

4. Be honest about advertising

Free and diverse debate is central to election integrity – yet micro-targeted advertising undermines this, hindering debate on matters of public interest during elections. Some platforms fail to detect adverts containing content that violate their own advertising policies, such as incitement or conspiracy theories.

Funding sources of political messaging are also opaque, preventing policymakers, journalists, and civil society from scrutinising the role of online political adverts in elections. Moreover, platforms often implement their transparency requirements for such adverts inconsistently across different countries. Together, this lack of transparency leaves people unaware of why they are targeted with specific ads.

When platforms allow political advertising, they must:

• Undertake due diligence on how political advertising complies with their human rights responsibilities at election time.

• Ensure their policies on political adverts clearly outline the content allowed, transparency requirements, and permissible targeting methods.

• Clearly identify political ads and key information such as the sponsor’s identity, location, and amount spent.

• Limit targeted advertising, give users more control over how their data is processed, and be honest with users about why they are seeing specific ads.

5. Be transparent and prioritise human rights in relationships with electoral authorities

Platforms must be aware of whether each country’s electoral authority is independent, biased, or politically controlled. To avoid jeopardising free expression online, they must:

• Acknowledge the potential risks in agreements they make.

• Refrain from entering into any agreements that allow electoral authorities to flag content for restrictions without a court order, and that could restrict freedom of expression.

• Engage with civil society to enhance people’s digital literacy and access to official electoral content.

6. Resist and challenge government censorship

During elections, governments often place pressure on platforms to grant them access to user data, restrict content, or block accounts. When threatened with severe sanctions, such as fines, advertising bans, or throttling, platforms often yield to this pressure.

To avoid being complicit in free expression violations, platforms must:

• Interpret government demands that are at odds with freedom of expression standards as narrowly as possible, in terms of scope and duration, especially requests to remove speech that could impact election results or public interest content.

• Evaluate the negative implications for freedom of expression resulting from potential sanctions around elections, and consider the likelihood of these sanctions being imposed.

• Explore all legal avenues to challenge censorship and data-access demands that violate international human rights standards.

• Coordinate with other companies to enhance leverage concerning authorities’ takedown and data-access requests, and be sure to report these requests.

• Engage with civil society to assess the potential significance of specific content and accounts, the probability of sanctions being imposed, and their impact on the electoral process.
  

7. Protect user access during internet shutdowns or throttling

Online platforms must make every effort to preserve user access when governments shut down the internet during election periods. They must:

• Openly communicate about government threats to impose shutdowns, and coordinate with civil society and other platforms to jointly push back against shutdown orders.

• Publicly disclose details about shutdown orders and explore all legal avenues to challenge them.

• Invest in technical tools to help circumvent restrictions, such as making the platform accessible through proxy servers, or providing ‘data-light’ versions of services that can function with significantly reduced internet speed.
  

Online platforms would also do well to pay close attention to the ongoing case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

This was a strong message from ARTICLE 19’s webinar on 6 March, which explored the free expression implications of the case, brought by South Africa under the Genocide Convention.

Our key takeaways from the discussion, which featured panellists Mai El-Sadany, David Kaye, Jiries Saadeh, and Yuval Shany, included:

• It can be argued that the ICJ’s provisional measures order, requiring Israel to preserve and prevent the destruction of evidence, also encompasses protecting freedom of expression. Killing journalists or imposing communication blackouts also breach the order.

• The inciting statements made by senior Israeli officials and soldiers could serve as evidence for the ICJ to determine not only whether Israel breached its obligations to prevent and punish incitement to genocide, but also whether the requirement of intent under the Genocide Convention has been met.

• Major online platforms should pay close attention to these proceedings: they host some of the incendiary statements that are at issue, as well as a lot of evidence that could be presented to the Court. They also have broader responsibilities under international law regarding the ongoing conflict.
  

‘This is an ever-changing world where we now have social media … we have this great amount of access to information, and I think that really necessitates [a change in] the way in which we think about how international law can better serve populations.’

– Mai El-Sadany
(Executive Director, Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy)

Are you a journalist in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, or Serbia? Does your work provide unique insights into one of these countries while demonstrating the key principles of ethical journalism?

If this is you (or someone you know), apply by 12 April for our Ethical Journalism Awards – you could win €1,000 and 5 days in Brussels and London!

These awards are part of #CheckitFirst: ARTICLE 19’s new campaign to promote ethical journalism as a defence against disinformation in the Western Balkans. Stay tuned for more campaign news!