The Silicon Standard for Human Rights

The Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference put forth a statement of 15 principles this past October for guiding the behavior of ICT companies in relation to human rights. According to the organizers at Access, "The document is designed to complement other existing frameworks and uses the international human rights framework as its foundation." There's a lot to chew on here. I'll let the principles speak for themselves:

1. Technology and Revolutions: Technology companies play an increasingly important role in enabling and supporting the end user's capacity to exercise his or her rights to freedom of speech, access to information, and freedom of association. ICT companies should respect those rights in their operations and also encourage governments to protect human rights through appropriate policies, practices, legal protections, and judicial oversight.

2. On Human Rights: In both policy and practice, technology companies should apply human rights frameworks in developing best practices and standard operating procedures. This includes adhering to John Ruggie's Protect, Respect, and Remedy framework outlined in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

3. Frontline Lessons from Other Sectors: Technology companies should look to the innovative examples and incorporate important lessons from other sectors, such as the apparel and extractive industries. The experiences of these sectors can and should guide them as they develop their human rights policies. These must be reflected in their operating practices in a transparent and accountable manner.

4. On Internet Regulation: To ensure innovation and the protection of human rights, internet regulation should only take place where it facilitates the ongoing openness, quality, and integrity of the internet and/or where it enables or protects users' ability to freely, fully, and safely participate in society. To achieve this end, it is critical that ICT corporations engage in multistakeholder dialogue.

5. Human Rights by Design: During the research, development, and design stages, technology companies should anticipate how and by whom their products and services will be used. Developing a human rights policy and engaging in due diligence at the earliest stages helps companies prevent crises, limit risk, and enable evidence-based assessment of company activities and reporting.

6. Encryption of Web Activity: Effective internet security is essential to ensuring freedom of speech, privacy, and the right to communicate. Technology companies must provide a basic level of security (e.g., HTTPS and its improvements) to their users by default and resist bans and curtailments of the use of encryption.

7. Getting Practical: Technology companies should implement human rights-respecting policies and practices in their day-to-day operations. These companies should utilize multi-stakeholder and cross-sector dialogues to review challenges faced within their markets with a view to improve their best practices.

8. Coding for Human Rights: Recognizing the human rights implications in code, engineers, developers, and programmers should ensure that technology is used in the exercise of fundamental freedoms, and not for the facilitation of human rights abuses. Technology companies should facilitate regular dialogue between engineers, executive leadership, and civil society to ensure that all parties are informed of the potential uses and abuses of their technologies.

9. Social Networking: Social networking platforms are both increasingly important to their users' capacity to communicate and associate online and are most used when customers trust the service's providers. When companies prioritize the rights of their customers, it is good for the long-term sustainability of their business, their brand, and their bottom line.

10. Intermediary Liability: In an era of computer-mediated communications, freedom of speech, association, and commerce increasingly depend on internet intermediaries (e.g., broadband service providers, web hosting companies). These intermediaries should not be required to determine the legality of, or held liable for, the content they host.

11. Legal Jurisdiction in a Borderless Virtual World: To foster the continued growth of an open and interconnected internet, technology companies should work alongside governments and civil society to ensure that users' rights are protected to the fullest extent possible. Governmental mandates that infringe upon freedom of expression and other human rights should be interpreted so as to minimize the negative impacts of these rules and regulations.

12. Visual Media and Human Rights: Technology companies should pay special attention to the unique human rights challenges of visual media technologies and content—especially on issues such as privacy, anonymity, consent, and access.

13. Social Media in Times of Crisis: Technology companies should resist efforts to shut down services and block access to their products, especially during times of crisis when open communications are critical. Blanket government surveillance of corporate networks should be resisted. Moreover, the burden of proof for privacy-invasive requests should lie with law enforcement authorities, who should formally, through court processes based on probable cause and rule of law, request a warrant for each individual whose information they would like to access.

14. Privacy: Technology companies should incorporate adequate privacy protections for users by default. Furthermore, technology companies should resist over-board requests from governments to reveal users' information, disclose no more information about their users than is legally required, and inform their users so that they can choose to legally respond to these requests. Furthermore, technology companies should be transparent about how user data is collected, processed, and protected—including disclosures of unauthorized access to user data.

15. Mobile and Telcos: Telecommunications companies must protect their users' fundamental human rights, including support for the protection of human rights in their operating licenses, and ensure that the free flow of communication is not curtailed or interfered with, even in times of crisis.

The big thing missing here is the subtext: While it's incredibly important to ensure that human rights are fulfilled in the use of information and communication technologies, it does us no good to simultaneously ignore abuses in their manufacture. My hope going forward is that this framework can be deepened to explicitly include the supply chains and labor rights problems associated with the ICT sector. The freedoms these magical gadgets enable must extend all the way down to the minerals.

Speaking Values with Confidence

This is a guest post by Diana Santana and Alberto Turlon from the Carnegie New Leaders program.

Consider a time in your career when you were asked to do something that went against your values. First, recall an instance when you acted in favor of your values. How did you do this? How did you communicate in ways that created change? Now, consider a time when faced with a similar challenge that you failed to voice your values. Why didn't you voice your concerns? Jot down these two stories.

Mary Gentile, educator, author of Giving Voice to Values (GVV), and creator of the GVV curriculum, opened a discussion of her work at a recent Carnegie New Leaders event by asking participants to call on their experiences and consider "A Tale of Two Stories." Adding to this exercise, Gentile recounted the Harvard Business School welcome speech that instructs incoming students to "look to the left of you, look to the right;" know that these are the people that you will call on for the rest of your life when faced with a values conflict. Drawing on one's network and reflecting on previous experiences are just two GVV tools that empower the individual to voice values in the workplace.

The GVV curriculum was born of observations and experiences that led to what Gentile referred to as a "crisis of faith." After Gentile's 10-year tenure at Harvard she began consulting with other top business schools on their business ethics curriculum. Scandals of the late 1990s and early 2000s involving MBAs were reminders that something in the classroom wasn't working. Despite attempts to change business school structure or course offerings, MBAs still exhibited unethical business behaviors. Survey studies released at the time also demonstrated that students were less ethical after completing business ethics courses.

Gentile keenly observed that relying on one's professional network and studying different models of ethical reasoning was not enough to ensure ethical behavior in the future. Something was lacking in the way students were being taught business ethics.

Gentile went on to become a consultant for a project at Columbia Business School. The project invited incoming MBA candidates to write an essay describing their experience with a situation where they were asked to act in a manner that conflicted with their values. The result of perusing some 1,000 essays, in light of earlier research conducted by Douglas Huneke and Perry London on altruism, created the foundation of Giving Voice to Values.

Gentile discovered that individuals who succeeded in communicating their values had at some point communicated their ideal response to another person they admired—a friend, a family member, a mentor, a work ally, a spouse, etc. She determined that this opportunity to pre-script the communication was essential to speaking up for their values in difficult situations.

Giving Voice to Values provides such an opportunity. It is a post–decision-making curriculum that enables individuals to hold strong to their principles and communicate their thoughts in a manner that best suits each individual's personality and communication style. The curriculum does not instruct students on what is right. Rather, it assumes that a values decision has already been determined and instead focuses on equipping people with the confidence to communicate their values.

Gentile recognized in her research that individuals in a professional setting tend to develop "preemptive rationalizations" that serve as excuses when faced with a values conflict. "Maybe I don't have all the information," one might claim. Another might think "this is just the way the industry works." Such excuses, coupled with the individual's sensitivity to their position in the hierarchy, stifle the individual from thinking through other possible scenarios and outcomes. The individual succumbs to the conflicting request despite uneasiness. GVV provides students the opportunity to observe others that have ignored these excuses and have found ways to express their values.

The curriculum encourages students to self-assess how personal goals align with organizational goals, provides exercises that ask the student to communicate their values in challenging situations, and gives students the chance to practice their communication with feedback. Armed with confidence, scripts, and values awareness, individuals are more likely to act on their values and enact positive change within an organization.

Gentile's presentation on GVV development and curriculum was convincing. She demonstrated the need for such a practical curriculum and showed its worth to students and society. It is no wonder the GVV curriculum is employed in organizations and universities all over the world. GVV provides the tools necessary to communicate personally while potentially making positive organizational and systemic change.

The exercises and examples Gentile mentioned were developed primarily for those in business and lacked specific application for those working in government, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations, the primary audience members at the Carnegie New Leaders event. Positive examples of non-business professionals communicating their values in challenging situations would have augmented the already powerful presentation.

Nonetheless, audience members understood that many of the values conflicts that arise in professional situations transcend industry. Each participant understood Gentile's broader message: Every values conflict has a remedy that varies on the individual's professional position, sensitivity, personality, and communication style.

GVV is an innovative approach that explores self-awareness of personal values and communication style. It provides the opportunity to construct and practice responses for a variety of situations. Giving Voice to Values gives values-driven individuals confidence to speak up for what's right, no matter the circumstance.

What Was All the Gossip About?

Now that some of the furor over Julian Assange and WikiLeaks has calmed down, it helps to untangle even a small strand of the web of intrigue surrounding the release of U.S. diplomatic cables. One of the themes we heard these past several months was that most of the cables are mere cocktail party "gossip." This phrase is often used to downplay their significance and to denigrate any public value WikiLeaks may provide as a safe harbor for whistleblowers.

Thus we see similar headlines all over the world: "Wikileaks 'Gossip' Merely Annoying in Latin America," Mario Osava, Inter Press Service, Dec. 13, 2010; "Good Gossip, and No Harm Done to U.S.," Albert R. Hunt, Bloomberg News, Dec. 5, 2010, syndicated in the New York Times; "Raila [Odinga] dismisses WikiLeaks reports as gossip," Carol Gakii and Kendagor Obadiah, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, Dec. 10, 2010; "WikiLeaks: Gossip on a global level," Rabia Ashfaque, Express Tribune Pakistan Blog, circa Dec. 10, 2010; "WikiLeaks: Much ado over idle chat," Korea Herald editorial, Dec. 17, 2010.

So where did this idea come from? Why has it crystallized in so many minds as a convenient explanation? The "gossip" diagnosis is portrayed as the commonsense response, and this alone is reason to beware. We live in an era of information warfare, marked by proliferation of secrecy and the agents who sustain it. Common sense is no longer credible when it can be so easily provided by a third party.

Take for example the CIA Red Cell Memorandum entitled "Afghanistan: Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-led Mission—Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough," a document leaked to WikiLeaks in early 2010. The first section pretty much sums it up: "Public Apathy Enables Leaders to Ignore Voters." It is painful to witness such brash condescension for the democratic values our troops die to protect, and it is pathetic how the CIA values apathy as a means to sustain an unpopular policy. Only a pathological detachment from life and death consequences could allow them to uphold this charade.

And for those moments when apathy is not enough and war opposition becomes real, the Red Cell Memo suggests a handful of tactics for massaging European publics, tailored to the unique cultural weaknesses of each nation.

The mission’s "multilateral and humanitarian aspects" are recommended as key selling points for German audiences, and a dose of fear is thrown in for good measure: "messages that illustrate how a defeat in Afghanistan could heighten Germany’s exposure to terrorism, opium, and refugees might help to make the war more salient to skeptics."

The French media strategy calls for stirring up guilt related to civilians and women: "The prospect of the Taliban rolling back hard-won progress on girls' education could provoke French indignation, become a rallying point for France's largely secular public, and give voters a reason to support a good and necessary cause despite casualties." The irony wafts like smoke from a Gauloise when we consider the controversy over headscarves in French public schools.

But the real sneakiness here is the way that ethical values are used to legitimize continuation of the war. Of course everyone wants Afghan women and children to live happy, safe, and fulfilling lives. But good news in the service of a democratically disfavored policy sows confusion and helps apathy proliferate. Policy Innovations, in fact, has run great articles over the years on Afghan women, children, and education because it's our business to tell success stories of innovation in development. And that's exactly where the CIA logic breaks down: There are women and children who need good health and education all over the world. Just because some of them happen also to be in Afghanistan doesn't mean that the United States and its allies can retroactively justify a 10-year occupation based on their fates.

This CIA memo preceded the diplomatic cable release but it speaks to a major issue that WikiLeaks has brought to the surface: We can't go on conducting international diplomacy with hypocrisy, cynicism, and dissimulation as if somehow people of different nations live on different planets and aren't listening. Or as Slavoj Zizek writes in the London Review of Books, "We can no longer pretend we don’t know what everyone knows we know." An age of appearances is over.

PHOTO CREDIT: Paco Rives Manresa (CC).