Social Media Providers and Human Rights

Abstract

Social media platforms provide opportunities for individuals to share information and express views through social media and other communication platforms. In recent years, there has been a surge in concern about the human rights impacts of ICT companies, including social media providers. The BHR regime, as well as its global applicability regardless of the national jurisdictions of actors and victims, provides the regime with important potential in regard to social media companies. We contribute to remedying that gap by focusing on human rights due diligence in relation to the posting and re-posting of photos of individuals that social media enables. We outline the key features of the UNGPs related to how business enterprises should identify and manage harmful human rights impact and engage with their business relations to do so. We provide examples from case law and social media usage reports on posting, deleting, and deleting photos and outline the features of social media provider business models that differ from those in sectors typi-cally associated with business-related human rights infringements. We discuss implications for the relationship between a social media company and its users and draw conclusions about the potential of the BHR.