Charting the Future of Big Tech Accountability

 

Panel Discussion: Charting the Future of Big Tech Accountability

Big Tech accountability has come a long way since Ranking Digital Rights’ inaugural report in 2015. More than ever, the companies we rank make explicit commitments to human rights, disclose how they handle government demands, and clearly describe their security measures. But the 2022 Big Tech Scorecard shows that there’s still a long way to go—and a lot we don’t know.

Companies aren’t telling us enough about how they develop and deploy algorithms. We don’t know enough about how they enforce their rules on targeted advertising. Most share almost nothing about their protocols for disclosing data breaches. And there are many other indicators that we monitor.

Meanwhile, recent whistleblower disclosures have helped fill the gaps and affirmed what we and other civil society groups have long argued: despite the best efforts of many working-level employees, Big Tech executives refuse to do what is necessary to protect people and societies from the harmful impact of their products and services.

With new legislation looming in Europe and the U.S., a boom in ESG shareholder resolutions targeting human rights harms, and a public that’s tired of being tracked, the next chapter of Big Tech accountability is unfolding fast.

 

Speakers:

Jessica Dheere, @jessdheere

Director, Ranking Digital Rights

 

Sarah Couturier-Tanoh, @share_ca

Corporate Engagement & Advocacy Manager, SHARE

 

Jesse Lehrich, @JesseLehrich

Co-Founder, Accountable Tech

 

Chris Lewis, @ChrisJ_Lewis

President & CEO, Public Knowledge

Katarzyna Szymielewicz, @szymielewicz

President, Panoptykon Foundation

 

Sophie Zhang, @szhang_ds

Facebook whistleblower

 

Moderator:

Nathalie Maréchal, @MarechalPhD

Policy Director, Ranking Digital Rights

 

 

More About the Panelists

Sarah Couturier-Tanoh, Corporate Engagement & Advocacy Manager, SHARE

Sarah Couturier-Tanoh is an expert in corporate research and shareholder engagement. She leads dialogues with Canadian and International companies to advance ESG issues, including human rights, decent work, and corporate lobbying. Sarah has also published several issue briefs on current shareholder and policy topics, using her insight from her background in non-financial auditing.

Before joining SHARE in 2019, at Université Laval, Sarah researched transparency in the extractive industry and climate change-related disclosure.

Sarah holds a master’s in Environmental Law from Université Laval, a master’s in Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility from University Paris-Dauphine, and a master’s in Comparative Public Law from University Pantheon-Assas, France.

Twitter: @share_ca

Jesse Lehrich, Co-Founder and Senior Advisor, Accountable Tech

Jesse Lehrich is a co-founder of Accountable Tech. He has a decade of experience in political communications and issue advocacy, including serving as the foreign policy spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, where he was part of the team managing the response to Russia’s information warfare operation.

Twiter: @JesseLehrich

Christopher Lewis, President & CEO, Public Knowledge

Christopher Lewis is President and CEO at Public Knowledge. Prior to becoming President and CEO, Chris served as Vice President of the organization from 2012 to 2019, leading the organization’s day-to-day advocacy and political strategy on Capitol Hill and at government agencies. During that time he also served as a local elected official, serving two terms on the Alexandria City Public School Board. Chris serves on the Board of Directors for the Institute for Local Self Reliance and represents Public Knowledge on the Board of the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG).

Chris also brings experience working in the Federal Communications Commission Office of Legislative Affairs, including as its Deputy Director. He has over 18 years of political organizing and advocacy experience, including serving as Virginia State Director at GenerationEngage, and working as the North Carolina Field Director for Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Campaign. Chris graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor’s degree in Government.

Twitter: @ChrisJ_Lewis

 

Katarzyna Szymielewicz, President, Panoptykon Foundation

Katarzyna Szymielewicz is an expert in human rights and technology, lawyer, and activist. She’s a co-founder and president of the Panoptykon Foundation, a Polish NGO defending human rights in surveillance society. From 2012 to 2019, Katarzyna was vice-president of European Digital Rights (EDRi), and she has been an Ashoka Fellow since 2015.

Katarzyna has contributed to the public debate in Europe on emerging issues such as algorithmic accountability, explainability of AI-supported decisions, micro-targeting based on inferred data, and the societal costs related to commercial surveillance.

Twitter: @szymielewicz

Sophie Zhang, Facebook Whistleblower

Sophie Zhang became a whistleblower after spending 2 years and 8 months at Facebook. During that time, she failed in efforts to fix the company from within. She personally caught two national governments using Facebook to manipulate their own citizenry, while also revealing concerning decisions made by Facebook regarding inauthenticity in Indian and U.S. politics.

Formerly a data scientist, Sophie currently stays home to pet her cats.

Twitter: @szhang_ds

Ranking Digital Rights

Jessica Dheere, Director, Ranking Digital Rights

Jessica Dheere is director of Ranking Digital Rights, an independent research program at the think tank New America that evaluates the world’s most powerful tech and telecom companies on their public commitments to protect users’ free expression, privacy, and other rights. She co-authored RDR’s spring 2020 report “Getting to the Source of Infodemics: It’s the Business Model.” A 2018-19 fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, she is also founder, former executive director, and board member of the Beirut-based Arab digital rights organization SMEX, where she launched the CYRILLA Collaborative, a catalog of global digital rights law and case law. She was an inaugural member of the Freedom Online Coalition’s Advisory Network and has presented at the Internet Governance Forum, the Milton Wolf Seminar on Media and Diplomacy, RightsCon, and the International Journalism Festival, among other international internet policy events. She is a graduate of Princeton University and the New School.

Twitter: @jessdheere

 

Nathalie Maréchal, Policy Director, Ranking Digital Rights

Nathalie Maréchal is an internationally recognized expert on digital rights, corporate governance, and corporate accountability. In 2020, Nathalie was the lead author of RDR’s “It’s the Business Model” report series, which builds on her 2018 Motherboard op-ed, “Targeted Advertising is Ruining the Internet and Breaking the World.” The series argues that disinformation, hate speech, and other “information harms” linked to social media platforms are rooted in the surveillance capitalism business model. Nathalie has testified in front of the US House of Representatives and the US International Trade Commission. She holds a PhD in communication from the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California, and lives in Washington, DC.
Twitter: @MarechalPhD