New principle: advancement of Digital Human Rights should be the apex principle of the Web platform

[csuwildcat]

With society relying more and more on digital interactions for work, personal, and community life, many digital activities have come to underpin a de facto set of digital human rights, which include: the ability for people to maintain identifiers that cannot be feasibly taken from them (unlike the identifiers of today, which are leased by companies and centralized entities), the ability of dissidents and at-risk individuals to connect/publish ID-linked data in censorship resistant ways, and the ability of individuals to exchange encrypted communications from self-owned IDs.

While the W3C's Ethical Web Principles document does include these sections:

The web must enable freedom of expression
We will create web technologies and platforms that encourage free expression, where that does not contravene other human rights. Our work should not enable state censorship, surveillance or other practices that seek to limit this freedom. This principle must be balanced with respect for other human rights, and does not imply that individual services on the web must therefore support all speech. (For example: hate speech, harassment or abuse may reasonably be denied a platform).

The web must enhance individuals' control and power
We recognize that web technologies can be used by developers to manipulate people, complicate isolation and encourage addictive behaviors. We recognize these risks and seek to mitigate against them when creating these technologies and platforms. We will therefore favor a decentralized web architecture that minimizes single points of failure and single points of control. We will also build Web technologies for individual developers as well for developers at large companies and organizations. The web should enable do-it-yourself developers.

^ they do not elevate digital human rights above other considerations. This is problematic because the EWP document contains far more subjective principles that can be conveniently used to oppose initiatives and technologies that materially aid in the protection of digital human rights. An example of this can be seen in the recent disagreement over the Decentralized Identifier spec: some have argued that using 1/20th of the emissions we dedicate to clothes dryers is not worth enabling systems that can protect people from the serious harms that result from centralized entities being able to Thanos snap any identifier and reliant connection graph they choose, effectively severing people from the digital relationships and communication connections they have formed. Additionally, the technologies that mitigate this harm can also allow people to connect more directly, removing many third parties who are currently privy to their personal digital exchanges/content. There are many more examples, but we certainly owe it to the world to do whatever we can to mitigate these growing threats to digital human rights.

It is the personal opinion of this participant that digital human rights are the most important of all principles, yet the EWP document does not reflect this. It is incumbent upon us to amend the document and clearly state that digital human rights are the most important consideration of all, a seemingly uncontroversial view I would be surprised to see opposition against.

[hober]

Moving this issue over to the Ethical Web Principles document, since it seems to be about that.

[dbaron]

My reading of your position is that you're arguing that Web technology should be constructed to establish (through technology) rights that cannot be revoked by governments and their legal processes. I think such an approach to rights means that law is then no longer a mechanism for the defense of those rights; defense of one's rights becomes a matter of technological skill (for example, skill at computer security). While such an approach may increase the power and wealth of those with technological skill, I don't think it's a good, fair, or ethical way to structure a society.

[csuwildcat]

My reading of your position is that you're arguing that Web technology should be constructed to establish (through technology) rights that cannot be revoked by governments and their legal processes. I think such an approach to rights means that law is then no longer a mechanism for the defense of those rights; defense of one's rights becomes a matter of technological skill (for example, skill at computer security). While such an approach may increase the power and wealth of those with technological skill, I don't think it's a good, fair, or ethical way to structure a society.

A lot of strange assumptions I see in this reply:

1. I do believe that technology, especially the Web platform, should support human rights, which are implicitly defined by being a human, not a citizen of a given government (e.g. governments have passed bad laws that attack all sorts of human rights, but that doesn't mean the Web should not hold itself to a higher standard).
2. I do believe that your human rights and freedom to exercise them on the Web should be separate from any particular government choosing to infringe on those rights or make it harder.
3. Nothing about my statement requires or implies a need to possess technical skill to use the Web platform and browsers to exercise digital human rights. Billions of people with very low technical skill use Web technologies and browsers every day through human-friendly interfaces and apps that make features accessible to them. I completely disagree with this statement "While such an approach may increase the power and wealth of those with technological skill" - the ability to use browsers/apps to manage passwords more easily, buy things more securely, and message others more privately had the exact opposite effect: it helped billions of people, and led to greater human advancement and technical innovation. The assertion that 'The Web platform putting digital human rights at the top of the stack in its list considerations/support == making the rich and smart richer and smarter, resulting in an unfair/unethical society' was definitely not on my Ethical Web Platform bingo card, as they say <-- I cannot understate the degree to which I push back on this, and strongly encourage you to reconsider what you've said.

[masinter]

@csuwildcat
Could you perhaps say a bit more about what you mean by "most important". W3C is a fundamentally technical forum,
W3C isn't really in a position to declare one set of rights "more important" than another.

https://github.com/w3ctag/ethical-web-principles/blob/gh-pages/README.md

has the Abstract:

The web should be a platform that helps people and provides a net positive social benefit. As we continue to evolve the web platform, we must therefore consider the ethical consequences of our work. The following document sets out ethical principles that will drive the TAG's continuing work in this direction.

A set of principles (engineering, safety, regulatory, ethical) should ALL be considered in applicable circumstances.
How is "helps people" and "provides a net positive social benefit" different from your proposal for "most important"?

[OR13]

I agree with @masinter ... not sure that one set of principles are more important than another... all should be considered, but I suspect pretty low chance of unanimous agreement on applying an order to the set.

Lets look at some examples:

FLoC

The technology will avoid the privacy risks of third-party cookies, but it will create new ones in the process. It may also exacerbate many of the worst non-privacy problems with behavioral ads, including discrimination and predatory targeting.

• eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-idea

Which is more important:

A. Making money from users?
B. Preventing discrimination?

The web must enhance individuals' control and power

We recognize that web technologies can be used by developers to manipulate people, complicate isolation and encourage addictive behaviors. We recognize these risks and seek to mitigate against them when creating these technologies and platforms. We will therefore favor a decentralized web architecture that minimizes single points of failure and single points of control. We will also build Web technologies for individual developers as well for developers at large companies and organizations. The web should enable do-it-yourself developers.

The web is transparent

The web was built on a "view source" principle, currently realized through robust developer tools built into many browsers. We will always make sure it is possible to determine how a web application was built and how the code works. Furthermore, we will always make sure it is possible to audit and inspect web applications and underlying software for security, privacy or other considerations.

In my opinion, FLoC is incompatible with ethical web principles... However, maybe web content won't exist if web operators can't make enough money... perhaps we should add a web principle that supports monetization, since the current set does not include a principle of "the web should be useful for making money"... Or perhaps the principles don't matter if we can decide to implement a technology that runs afoul of them anyway.

Let's consider another example...

Bitcoin

While EFF supports regulators stepping in to hold accountable those engaging in fraud, theft, and other misleading business practices, we have been skeptical of many regulatory proposals that are vague; designed for only one type of technology; could dissuade future privacy-enhancing innovation; or that might entrench existing players to the detriment of upstart innovators.

• eff.org/issues/blockchain

Which is more important:

A. Preventing funding of terrorist organizations?
B. Protecting funding of journalist organizations?

See also: Visa, MasterCard Move To Choke WikiLeaks

The web should not cause harm to society

When we are adding a feature or technology to the web, we will consider what harm it could do to society or groups, especially vulnerable people.

Are wikileaks "vulnerable people"?... are they causing harm to society?

Is allowing Bitcoin to exist enabling the funding of a terrorist organization or protecting journalistic rights?

The web must be an environmentally sustainable platform

The web, as a whole, is a big source of carbon emissions, because it is a big consumer of power. New web technologies should not make this situation worse. We will consider power consumption and the resulting emissions when we introduce new technologies to the web.

Is bitcoin's decentralization worth its energy cost?

What happens when one principle costs power to defend, but another principle is to use less power?

Is one principle worth more to society than all others?

Is "Protecting against Environmental destruction" more important than the Economy?

Is "Protecting against Discrimination" more important than the Economy?

[bumblefudge]

Yup, +1 to @masinter and I fear the expertise of the average participant in this process might be too far afield of ethics and governance to make a document prioritizing or even high-level describing the calculus at play, even if I support efforts to define digital and informational rights as a framework for international law and, particularly, anti-trust enforcement and tech regulations. Might just be a question of venue.

[csuwildcat]

@bumblefudge I do agree with you, @OR13, and @masinter that the vast majority of these principles are highly subjective and can be interpreted/weighted in dramatically different ways depending on who is reading them, or straining to read into them (as is the case in recent events). As a result, this document and its contents are clearly inappropriate for use as a tool one would invoke, be it with genuine or dubious intent, to block specifications and technical work. The document should plainly state that each individual member should personally consider these principles in relation to their own behavior and choices, not attempt to use the document as an appeal to morality/authority to hand out dubious Scarlet Letters based on subjective 'principle violations' that may be dubious in motivation and/or lack basic empirical rigor.

I must admit, I'm surprised I got pushback on making human rights the most important principle for W3C members to consider, as evidenced by the statements here against elevating technologies that protect human rights. However, this did tease out an important takeaway we must act on: the principles in the document are clearly hard to weight, full of subjectivity, and are prone to use in divisive, selective ways. The best course is to add language to the document to ensure this does not continue to occur.

[louisnk]

Definitely a complex issue as all have pointed out.

As nearly all of the principles are about people already, it seems environmental and healthy communities are most likely to be coopted as weapons in thinly veiled attacks against human rights. Stating that the web should advance individuals' control and power, or privacy and security, does not sufficiently protect against these attacks on holistic, digital human rights.

Making digital human rights the most important principle may be easy to oppose as it may appear to degrade the importance of other principles if viewed in a snapshot of time – today. However if readers were encouraged to consider this document over a time horizon longer than today I believe we can agree that all of the principles clearly coalesce in support of human rights, including environmental sustainability.

The cost of energy for proof of work today may seem high, but is clearly heavily incentivized towards net zero or better, and contributes significantly towards nearly all of the principles in the long run.

Do some emissions today (one 1 principle) outweigh the benefits to all of humanity (the other eleven 11 principles) today? Perhaps, if we accept that those emissions are making the planet less hospitable.

However if we consider that nearly all outcomes require activation energy to get to a lower energy state, we might see a different calculus. Are a few years of emissions worse than a century of sound money, strong communities, privacy, and most of the other principles, all being protected by technology regardless of authoritarian whims? Perhaps not, if we consider the long history of government power grabs and corporate surveillance that work tirelessly to undermine these principles.

This is all an oversimplification, but it seems simple enough to state that the ultimate goal of ethical web principles is to advance digital human rights, which contributes to human rights on the whole.

After all, these principles are about people and what the web can do for them.

[dbaron]

Let me try to give an example to clarify what I meant:

Suppose that I (David) get a reliable and generally trusted authority to issue me a digital identity that says that I am Daniel. Is it my human right to communicate using that identity and impersonate Daniel, and should Web technology be built so that my ability to continue to use that digital identity cannot be disrupted? Or should Daniel have some method of recourse, perhaps through a legal system, to get me to stop using that identity and impersonating him?

[csuwildcat]

@dbaron you seem to have commingled a couple key concepts, so let's unpack:

Preface - your digital identity is composed of two main things: identifiers you use to be recognized (when you choose to be), and actual identity data about you that you generate, gather, or publish as you choose. Credentials are one type of identity data, as are your tweets, pictures of family, etc.

On to your use case:

1. If you, David, created an identifier, did:example:123, that identifier is something no one should be able to feasibly take from you, and you should be able to use it however you choose - this is a fundamental digital human right. We should definitely build and support the technologies that make this possible.
2. If you, David, by error or fraud, were able to convince a trusted source (e.g. government citizenship office) to issue a credential against your identifier that attributed my citizenship to you, that's not good, and obviously we need to design a system that can reverse this error.
3. To correct this situation, the issuer of the errant citizenship credential would revoke it, severing you from being able to use it, but you'd still get to keep your identifier, which you should rightfully be able to own independently of any credentials or data that may come and go over time.

The Web, and we as technologists, must ensure both of these critical identity needs are accounted for: 1) people should be able to own and control their identifiers without fear of being Thanos snapped, and 2) identity credentials/data mechanisms should come with the necessary capabilities to enable exactly the kind of revocable severance you illustrated. Luckily, that's exactly what the systems we have been working on make possible, preserving the digital human rights of every party involved in the scenario you mentioned.

[csuwildcat]

@dbaron honest inquiry: how did you come to be of the mind that, in terms of digital human rights use cases, folks here are arguing for a system where a Driver's License errantly issued to the identifier of a 5 year old somehow means it is irrevocable and the 5 year old is able to drive from here on, without intervention/recourse? Did you think credentials issued to an identifier were immutable, or put on a 'blockchain'? If so, that's definitely not the case, so it would be great to talk offline about these critical system constructs, if you'll allow me the time.

[lknik]

Would it be possible to ground this in some more official document of a State or the UN? Just to know what this principle is based on. Human rights did not appear out of vacuum.

[tobie]

I agree with @lknik here, it’s not super clear to me what we’re talking about when we’re discussing digital human rights. The UN has ongoing work on this topic, but it seems little more than a roadmap at this point. Was that what you were referring to?

[lknik]

And if you want to include China's take, here's some new document speaking about "the adherence to the guidance of Xi Jinping’s Thoughts on Socialism" to "monitor against risks" and to "establish correct orientation of the algorithms" in order to "promote the core values ​​of socialism, and adhere to the correct political direction" and "prevention of the risk of algorithm abuses".

Upons second thoughts, maybe it's best to not keep it regional and go with standard UN grounding.