The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the Commission) meeting at its 82nd Ordinary Session, held virtually from 25 February to 11 March 2025:
Recalling its mandate to promote and protect human and peoples’ rights in Africa under Article 45(1) and (2) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the African Charter);
Affirming Articles 2 and 9 on the rights of all peoples to enjoy the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the African Charter without distinction including the rights to receive information, to express and disseminate opinions within the confines of the law;
Reaffirming the provisions of the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa which provides in Principle 5 that the same rights that people have offline should be protected online, in accordance with international human rights law and standards;
Noting with deep concern the recent regress by technology companies with regard to information integrity and online protection of expression and access to information;
Underlining that the content moderation operations of these services of these technology companies in Africa should provide full coverage of African languages, have sufficient human resources in the loop of content assessment and users’ appeal, and ensure that Artificial Information (AI) systems are adequately trained to cover African languages;
Underscoring that ‘community notes’ mechanisms are not an alternative to the companies own responsibilities to uphold their corporate responsibilities and ‘community standards,’ and declaring further that ‘community notes; are also not a substitute for independent fact-checking and registering our concerns that ‘community notes’ are susceptible to be captured by forces that do not respect human rights;
Noting the weaponisation of a particular social network, and its related AI services, as representing a departure from the role of being a neutral platform and questioning whether such changes raise the risk of political agendas, including foreign interference, being potentially harmful to information integrity on this platform and related AI services;
Calling on digital companies that provide services in Africa to adopt transparent human rights impact assessments as part of due diligence for any changes being contemplated, or for any upcoming risk situations in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, applying these assessments especially in cases of elections, health crises and the possibility of violent conflict;
Further recognising the importance of comprehensive African access to the data held by technology companies, on a par with the highest standards in other regions, which is essential for knowledge about systemic risks to information integrity on their services as well as for independent assessments in relation thereto;
The Commission calls the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa to develop Guidelines with all interested parties, such as civil society, regulatory bodies and technology companies, to enable States Parties to effectively monitor the platforms’ performance in order to inform of the efforts to advance information integrity online, including the role of independent fact-checking in the African context.
Done virtually, 11 March 2025
