Session
Organizer 1: Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Organizer 2: Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Organizer 3: Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 1: Bruno Carballa Smichowski, Intergovernmental Organization, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 2: Camila Leite Contri, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 3: Juan David Gutiérrez, Technical Community, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 4: Hannah Taieb, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Roundtable
Duration (minutes): 75
Format description: The session aims to foster discussion, ideas, comprehension and alignment between speakers and the in-person and online audiences. We therefore believe the best format to advance the session’s objectives is a Round Table, which offers time and openness to support constructive debate.
(i) Is it reasonable to consider large private technology companies to be gatekeepers of human rights? If so, what does this mean? (ii) Given the economic concentration of AI and big tech companies, how can the legal system be used to protect human rights? (iii) In addition to legal regulatory models, what other possibilities, such as economic, technical, and educational, can we consider in thinking about new realities for technologies and business models that protect rights?
What will participants gain from attending this session? Panelists will present an overview of the effects of the economic concentration of AI companies and digital communication platforms on human rights and the potential responses from the perspective of different sectors. The premise of the panel is that these strategies should be multiple, combining different tools, such as (i) encouraging territorialized communication in communities, based not only on social networks, (ii) identifying and promoting digital communication technology solutions that are open and accessible, (iii) access to information on how social media platforms work to make informed decisions about in which situations it is safe or risky to use them, (iv) increasing legal requirements for transparency and accountability of platforms, (v) confronting the concentration of economic power in large social media platforms and AI tools.
Description:
The session will bring together multistakeholder experts to discuss the growing economic power of AI companies and digital platforms and their implications for human rights and democratic processes. Through an interactive format, both in-person and online participants will engage in a collaborative discussion on the role of digital platforms as "gatekeepers" of human rights and the need for regulatory frameworks to ensure fairness and competition in digital markets to protect human rights. The session will focus on: (i) The Impact of Platform Monopolies on Human Rights: Examining how AI and data-centric, attention-driven business models lead to the exploitation of user data, limit consumer choice, and perpetuate a cycle of dependency while undermining democratic principles and human rights; (ii) Regulation of AI and Platform Conduct and Structures, especially to promote a more diverse and competitive digital market ; (iii) Exploration of the intersection between human rights and economic interests, with a focus on creating regulatory solutions that support both innovation and fundamental freedoms in digital spaces; (iv) Practical Regulatory Solutions: Delving into concrete proposals such as interoperability of systems, unbundling of services, and promoting open-source tools to reduce the power concentration in digital markets, foster innovation, and ensure users have real choices. The session will be an interactive opportunity for stakeholders to exchange ideas, propose tangible solutions, and collaborate on a regulatory framework that promotes accountability, fairness, and transparency in the digital ecosystem.
The session is expected to gather suggestions for collaboratively designed solutions, which will be the subject of a report published after the meeting. In addition, the conversation will be used to plan new meetings in the form of events, training sessions, and workshops on the same theme so that discussions can continue to evolve in search of concrete solutions to the problem of economic concentration of large AI companies and digital platforms that pose a risk and cause concrete harm to the exercise of human rights.
Hybrid Format: One month before the roundtable, video and text information about the topic will be released on social media to create interest, and generate questions from the audience. Simultaneously, an online form will be made available to identify the most frequently asked questions, with space for comments and suggested questions for the panel participants. On the day of the event, online and on-site moderators will select questions from the audience for the panelists. In addition to the comments and questions in the live stream facilitated by the event organizers, online audience participation will be encouraged on social media using specific hashtags. These questions will be organized and forwarded to the panelists for answers. There will also be the possibility of engagement after the roundtable, as any unanswered questions will be forwarded to the panelists. If relevant, they will be included in the roundtable final report.
Report
Summary Report: A competition & rights approach to digital markets
Monopoly and competition issues are key to human rights, and the Internet governance community must analyze them together. The technocratic point of view from which this topic is recurrently analyzed is only one side of the equation; the other side is the social dimension. Often, power is the foundation of abuse. Citizenship is currently tech-mediated. This means it affects how we communicate and interact among ourselves, inform about public interest issues, and coordinate individually and collectively to participate in the public arena.
With major digital platforms dictating the rules about how we experience the digital civic space, the possibilities in which we can exercise our human rights are impacted. The way people use the platforms is not a choice; the platforms monetarily gain from polarization and disinformation, and society loses in terms of democracy. Power translates into other kinds of power, particularly the economic one. Users cannot have a free space for debating if the main digital platforms in which they express themselves are part of the debate and continue to bias the conversation. The monopoly of digital platforms has a real impact on the distribution of information. This has a clear impact on democracies, affecting the communities’ political life and shared truth.
Competition authorities have the attribution and power to prevent these abuses. For example, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a regulation that has a pure economic objective: to reduce the market power of gatekeepers (digital platforms that meet the criteria to be considered as such). But this indirectly has an effect to restrain their power in non-economic ways. The regulation intends to ex ante prevent them from abusing their position of power. As a society, we need less capacity for them to abuse consumers and users in non-economic ways.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for contexts, particularly from the Global South. But different ingredients can be added to provide alternatives to overcome the economic power of these enterprises. Trials and errors are important to learn about what works. We need to create better possibilities for the users to be able to choose which platform is better, also in terms of how this platform respects their human rights.
We need to rethink a business model if said model is incompatible with human rights. We need to raise concerns about the monopoly of who holds the information that we are being fed. It is an opportunity to rethink business models in the pursuit of human rights. We need models that place importance on the value of information sharing and are less dependent on revenue. To solve the impacts, there must be holistic approaches.
Cooperation and dialogue between authorities are necessary, particularly between data protection and competition authorities. Also, with consumers and other sectors. To bring not only economic lenses to this topic. Civil society needs to speak in market language because private sector conversations have an impact on human rights.
