This is a draft version. Source: adapted notably from the Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki, https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Wikimedia_Human_Rights_Policy (CC BY-SA 4.0), with changes. Status: proposal, to be adopted. See the detailed disclaimer.

In simple words: human rights are the basic rights of every person: expressing yourself freely, being safe, not being discriminated against. This page proposes the commitment of the platform and its hosting foundation to respect and protect those rights: for the people who work on the platform, for the volunteers who contribute to it, and for everyone affected by it. It also proposes how problems would be reported and fixed.

Human rights policy

Introduction

The WikiDeal vision, fair deals with nice people, and its founding question, can users own, run and sustain a global marketplace?, both rely upon and enable human rights. For that vision to thrive, people must be able to seek, receive, and impart information freely, and to associate and contract with each other fairly. The Platform depends upon the human right to freedom of expression as enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which also affirms the right to "seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

WikiDeal aims at advancing access to fair contracting for communities around the world by removing barriers to access so that everyone can fully participate in, and benefit from, the WikiDeal Markets and Portals (collectively, "the Platform"). By promoting equal access to contractual knowledge and tools, the project challenges the historic concentration of legal and commercial capability in the hands of a few. Recognizing that many people have been excluded by structures of power and privilege, the Platform could play a role in realizing the human right to non-discrimination, for women, LGBTQ+ communities, historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, people with disabilities, and communities in underserved regions, and in people's native languages.

Yet the ability of WikiDeal to help everyone, everywhere deal fairly is limited when universal human rights are not protected and respected. Therefore, this Human Rights Policy proposes the commitment of the Ynternet.org Foundation, as host and incubator of WikiDeal, to protect and respect the full range of human rights across the Platform.

Commitments

The proposed human rights commitments build on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the following international human rights instruments:

As a private organization that would support the operation of digital platforms and services, the Ynternet.org Foundation intends to protect and respect all internationally recognized human rights in accordance with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). The Foundation is a non-profit organization. But the work of developing, operating, and supporting digital platforms and services exposes it, and all people who contribute to or interact with the Platform, to human rights risks common to all digital platforms, including those operated by private companies.

Scope: the proposed commitment to protect and respect human rights includes: how the Foundation would respond to and protect members of the community against demands and threats from governments that violate the human rights of people who contribute to or interact with the Platform; how it would respond to and protect against threats by malign non-state actors; how the Platform can protect the rights of children; and all other ways that the activities and operations of the Foundation and the Platform might affect the rights of employees, volunteers, users, and the communities they belong to.

The Foundation supports human rights defenders (including journalists) who work to peacefully promote and protect human rights. It condemns all threats, acts of intimidation and retaliation, persecution, and physical and legal attacks against human rights defenders.

Relationship to laws: in the context of operating platforms and services around the world, it is recognized that in some countries, national law may offer weaker protections for staff, volunteers, and community than international standards, or may directly conflict with them. In instances where national law is weaker and there is a direct ability to uphold a higher human rights standard, the intention is to do so. Where national law directly conflicts with international standards, the Foundation would comply with national law in cases where it determines it to be applicable.

How the commitments would be implemented

The intention is to protect and respect the human rights of all people on the Platform and beyond, through governance that reflects the values of the project: openness, transparency, and collaboration with the community. The commitments would be operationalized in these ways:

Conduct ongoing human rights due diligence, including periodic human rights impact assessments, in addition to regular engagement with rights holders and their legitimate representatives. This due diligence would aim at identifying how all aspects of the operations and the Platform affect human rights, and in turn at mitigating and preventing harm.
Track and publicly report on the efforts to meet these human rights commitments, as part of a broader commitment to public transparency and openness.
Use influence with partners, the private sector, and governments to advance and uphold respect for human rights, especially the right to share and access information and the right to deal fairly.
Provide access to effective remedies. In cases where prevention and mitigation strategies have not prevented the products, platforms, or operations from contributing to the curtailment, infringement or violation of human rights, the intention is to maintain and improve mechanisms for reporting harms or abuses, to work with experts and stakeholders to develop or support appropriate forms of redress, proportionate to the type and manner of harm, and to avoid obstructing access to other forms of remedy, including judicial remedies.

These commitments would take time to implement, and honesty about successes and shortcomings along the way is part of the commitment.

People of the WikiDeal community

People are at the core of WikiDeal. Digital rights are human rights. This means paying special attention to staff and contractors, volunteer contributors, and people who use the Platform, as well as recognizing a responsibility to people who are not direct contributors or users, but whose societies are affected by the impact of the Platform.

Foundation staff

Staff and contractors of the Ynternet.org Foundation would support the Platform, its volunteers and its users. The intention is that governance bodies hold leadership accountable for abiding by this policy, and that staff and contractors across all functions be educated about how their work might affect the human rights of individuals and communities.

In managing staff and contractors, the intention is to uphold international human rights and labor standards. The Universal Code of Conduct defines expectations for everyone who interacts in and contributes to the spaces and activities of the Platform. Discrimination on the basis of place of origin, race, ethnicity, citizenship, gender or gender expression, age, political or religious affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, family relationship, physical ability, or economic or medical status would not be practiced or tolerated. The aim is to treat all people with respect, and to foster a productive environment free of harassment, intimidation and discrimination, and to ensure the physical safety of staff.

Community volunteers

The Platform would be created by volunteer contributors: template authors, documentation writers, translators, developers. In doing so, they may expose themselves to risk, whether from harassment, government surveillance, or threat of reprisal by both state and non-state actors. Volunteers have the right to an environment that is free from harassment, whether by other volunteers, or by external actors.

Internal threats: the Platform belongs to everyone, and everyone acting in good faith should be able to participate and feel respected. The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) provides a universal baseline of acceptable behavior for the whole Platform. The UCoC is aligned with human rights norms and is grounded in the commitment to treat everyone who participates with dignity and respect. The intention is also to work with volunteers to ensure user conduct policies are clear, effective, and enforceable and that volunteers are provided with appropriate trust and safety tools, including tools to detect, report, evaluate and remove harassing content.

External threats: volunteers may experience threats from outside the community based on their participation. The intention is to conduct specific due diligence to maximize the safety and security of volunteers who are at greatest risk of persecution, reprisal or harassment in the course of their contributions due to their beliefs or characteristics, including human rights defenders.

The commitment to mitigate risks related to government surveillance would be guided by the Privacy policy and by internationally recognized standards for protecting freedom of expression and privacy when addressing government demands, such as the Global Network Initiative Principles. The intention is to protect volunteers from requests for their data that contradict human rights standards, and to provide volunteers with support and resources to protect themselves from violations of their legitimate privacy rights by governments and other powerful non-state actors.

Impact of the Platform

By providing access to fair contracting tools and free contractual knowledge, the Platform could help advance a range of human rights. The intention is to develop technology and products with guidance from people with human rights expertise, and to deploy technologies that are considered industry best practice to maximize the safety and security of everyone who contributes to or interacts with the Platform.

Even so, some features, technologies, or processes may, inadvertently, have a negative impact on human rights across communities and societies. Specific risks related to children's rights need to be evaluated: see the proposed policy on combating online child exploitation. There are also risks of malign misuse: for example, some people and organizations could try to use the Platform to defraud others, to launder unfair terms through seemingly standard templates, or to silence or discredit members of the community. The intention is to align responses to such threats with international human rights standards, particularly for freedom of expression and privacy.

The intention is also to work with volunteers on systems and processes to identify and remove demonstrably harmful content, and to support volunteers with training to ensure that content is handled sensitively and appropriately where it may be deeply disturbing.

Due diligence

Due diligence and impact assessment processes are important tools for identifying risks and developing mitigation strategies to limit adverse human rights impacts, including infringements of the right to freedom of expression and non-discrimination. The intention is to conduct ongoing due diligence, including periodic impact assessments, covering the full range of ways in which the operations and the Platform could cause, contribute, or be linked to any human rights harms.

Processes for due diligence and impact assessment would be developed so that they can be applied by staff and volunteers to new as well as existing products, services, features, and technologies (including algorithmic systems), in addition to other community activities such as campaigns and events. Designing and scaling such processes is a long-term commitment requiring significant time and resources; continuous improvement and transparency about progress are part of the commitment.

Governance

Implementation of this human rights policy would be coordinated by the governance bodies of WikiDeal, which are intended to emerge through the founding steering committee and a soft transmission to the community. The precise governance function responsible for human rights would be defined by those bodies.

Grievance

The intention is to continuously evaluate and improve on-platform channels and grievance mechanisms. Anyone with a concern about the human rights implications of the activities of the Platform or the Foundation can communicate concerns to info@wikideal.net. Community disputes would follow the proposed path of mediation first, then arbitration: see the Justice portal.

Accountability

The future governance bodies would be asked to approve this policy and hold management accountable to it on an ongoing basis, to include human rights expertise in their composition, and to receive at least annual updates, including examples of specific human rights issues, and/or trends in types of human rights issues. The approach would be adapted based on the findings of ongoing human rights due diligence, engagement with volunteers, and engagement with other key external stakeholders.

Policies/en/Human-Rights-Policy