Every year, we evaluate 26 of the world’s most powerful digital platforms and telecom companies on how well they uphold the human rights that are fundamental to our dignity and democracy.
Ranking Digital Rights stands in solidarity with digital rights defenders affected by the cancellation of RightsCon 2026, which was scheduled to be hosted in Lusaka, Zambia. We unequivocally condemn the Zambian government’s unilateral decision to “postpone” the event at the eleventh hour. This move, which
Today, Ranking Digital Rights is renewing its mission as an independent initiative. Thirteen years into our efforts to hold the world’s technology giants accountable, we are doubling down on solidarity and standing up to confront a new wave of tech power, We’re proud to team
Imagine a social media service removing a journalist’s reporting on social protests at the behest of an authoritarian government. Or a platform allowing the rampant spread of disinformation from public authorities to suit their political narrative. Perhaps a telecommunication operator regularly providing user data from
**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE** April 28, 2025 Amsterdam, 28 April 2025 — Despite growing threats to users’ rights online and the explosion of generative AI, the world’s largest tech giants are still failing to create the guardrails needed to protect the rights of billions of
Photo by ev on Unsplash. In 2022, as part of our effort to expand corporate accountability in the Majority World under the auspices of the Greater Internet Freedom Consortium, we partnered with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) to collaborate on a research project using
On January 1, 2024, RDR began the next chapter of its corporate accountability work with a transition to the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA). This move will give RDR an opportunity to engage with a broader international coalition of benchmarking efforts driving systems change through the tools of corporate accountability. It will also serve as a new bridge between New America and the World Benchmarking Alliance under our shared vision of advancing a more inclusive and sustainable digital future.
Over the past decade, Ranking Digital Rights has established a strong reputation for holding Big Tech and Telco Giant companies accountable for upholding human rights. Many bright minds have passed through RDR’s (figurative) doors, who have made important contributions to ensuring RDR would find the
In 2022, for the first time, Ranking Digital Rights divided its flagship Corporate Accountability Index—which, since 2015, has evaluated the world’s most powerful digital platforms and telcos on their respect for human rights—into two, becoming the Big Tech Scorecard (BTS) and the Telco Giants Scorecard
With the release of her pivotal Consent of the Networked in 2012, RDR Founder Rebecca MacKinnon issued a call to action for civil society to defend our digital rights from companies with the same rigor with which we’ve previously fought for our rights before governments. In
Since 2018, organizations across various socio-political contexts have adapted RDR’s methodology to hold platforms and other ICT services accountable. What do they each have in common? Protecting the rights of some of the globe’s most marginalized and discriminated against populations. Two of the most successful
