IGF 2014

Digital technologies and the Internet offer tremendous opportunities for the creation and distribution of content, enabling users to express themselves and reach their audiences in unprecedented ways. At the same time, the advancement of digital technologies relating to identification and rights management has brought to the market increasingly efficient and affordable solutions to deal with potentially illegal material.

However, due to the complexity of the contextual assessments required to determine the legality of such material, these solutions are far from perfect. For this reason, it is crucial that technical solutions be deployed in conjunction with safeguards preventing their abuse, and ensuring the respect of due process, privacy and freedom of expression of the parties involved.

Increasingly, these safeguards depend on the terms and conditions adopted by online platforms, and the procedures through which they operate. Therefore, it seems appropriate to shift the discussion on intermediary liability to a focus on “responsibility”, in order to promote human rights-compliant procedures to content management.

This workshop aims to bring together a variety of stakeholders to discuss the problems associated with content removal in two distinct scenarios: copyright infringement and offensive (including indecent and defamatory) content.

While each of these scenarios presents peculiarities that may call for different approaches, they share in the need to provide a quick and effective remedy for potential victims without unduly restricting human rights. Ultimately, the workshop aims to identify best practices that Internet platforms can adopt to that end.