Post by account_disabled on Mar 5, 2024 21:34:43 GMT -6
Surprise? Possibly not. The digital giants Facebook and Amazon , as well as others, have long been the target of countless criticisms not only from users, but also from experts who accuse them of not being socially responsible.
Although its corporate problems abound, one of them is that its disclosed policies and practices affect people's rights to freedom of expression and privacy.
And recently, Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) published the Digital Rights Corporate Responsibility Index Ranking 2020 to confirm this.
Ranking Digital Rights
Ranking Digital Rights , works to promote freedom of expression and privacy on the Internet by creating global standards and incentives for companies to respect and protect user rights.
To do this, they classify the most powerful telecommunications, mobile phone and Internet companies in the world according to relevant commitments and policies, based on international human rights standards.
“Companies’ collective failure to meet even our minimum standards of policy transparency puts the dangers of abusing digital power into high relief,” writes RDR
We work with companies, as well as advocates, researchers, investors and policymakers to establish and promote global standards for corporate responsibility.
Ranking Digital Rights.
These purposes have led to the publication of the RDR 2020 Index for the fifth consecutive year . It should be noted that this is a non-profit initiative that does not receive corporate financing and is supported by donations.
RDR Index 2020
The 2020 RDR Index was responsible for evaluating 26 of the world's most powerful digital platforms and telecommunications companies on their policies and disclosed practices that affect freedom of expression and privacy.
The companies evaluated are among the most powerful, and have a combined market capitalization of more than USD $11 trillion. Its reach is such that its products and services affect the majority of the world's 4.6 billion Internet users.
Facebook and Amazon's CSR fails
What was discovered? Something that perhaps we already suspected: The CSR of Facebook and Amazon, among other giants, fails.
The CSR of Facebook and Amazon, among other giants, fails
According to the Ecuador Mobile Number List index, in 2020, improvements were seen by the majority of companies and notable examples of good practices were found . However, all of this was overshadowed by findings showing that the global Internet is facing a systemic crisis of transparency and accountability. And hence:
All the companies studied failed the collective minimum standards of political transparency.
According to RDR:
Users of the world's most powerful digital platforms and telecommunications services are largely unaware of who has the ability to access their personal information and under what circumstances.
Ranking Digital Rights.
People lack basic information about who controls their ability to connect, talk online, or access information, and what information is promoted and prioritized.
The classification of the companies studied was divided into two: Digital platforms and telecommunications company, and the protagonists of the index were the following:
Facebook and Amazon's CSR fails
Facebook and Amazon's CSR fails
As you can see, within the flaw that exists in their CSR, there have been some slightly positive changes by companies compared to the 2019 index.
Twitter took first place in this year's ranking of digital platforms, due to its comparatively strong transparency about the application of content rules and the Government's censorship demands.
While Telefónica maintained its first place in 2020 and obtained the highest governance score of all companies (including digital platforms) by almost 20 points for its strong human rights commitments. However, the panorama was different for others.
Serious failure in CSR
Ooredoo scored the lowest of all companies. The Qatari telecommunications company disclosed less than any other telecommunications company that was evaluated about its governance processes to ensure respect for human rights.
For its part, Amazon ranked last among digital platforms. The e-commerce giant scored just 20 out of a possible 100 points , showing how far behind the company is in transparency and accountability around user rights, particularly compared to other major US-based digital platforms.
In 2020, nearly all companies evaluated in the 2019 Index improved disclosure in multiple areas affecting freedom of expression and user privacy. With the exceptions of Google and AT&T, all companies surpassed their 2019 scores on comparable metrics.
For its part, Facebook had the lowest and second-lowest scores, respectively, of all digital platforms evaluated for its transparency regarding options for users to control what data is collected, inferred, retained and processed.