Online abuse is silencing human rights defenders and social media users while big tech platforms do little to protect them.
The freedom to express ourselves and show solidarity for causes we believe in without fear of attack is essential for our societies and the big global challenges we care about. For human rights defenders, it is vital for holding power to account.
The Syria Campaign’s new report, The Silencing Effect and the Effect of Silence, exposes how online abuse, disinformation, and weak platform protections are forcing people to withdraw from social media. Our research found that more than half of survey respondents in the UK, France and Germany had experienced some form of online abuse and of those, 82% are self-censoring or withdrawing from social media.
Their self-censorship has real-world consequences:
- It prevents crucial stories from being told and shared.
- It isolates human rights defenders who rely on these spaces to expose abuses.
- It undermines democracy and activism, weakening public discourse and civic engagement.
As social media platforms fail to protect their users, self-censorship is erasing the voices of those who risk everything to speak the truth. When human rights defenders are silenced, we all lose access to vital information.
The European Union has one of the strongest legislation – the Digital Services Act – in the world and we must not ensure it is fully enforced, setting a global precedent and ensuring that social media is a space where truth can be shared safely, free from online threats and disinformation.
We must demand action. Send a message to the EU Commission to enforce stronger protections for digital spaces. Social media should empower voices, not silence them. Stand with those who risk everything to tell the truth.
Read the full report here