Wikipedia:Internet Employees' Bill of Rights

Background

In March 2014, the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web, its founder Tim Berners-Lee, called for an "Internet Bill of Rights", a global Magna Carta of freedom of expression that should be a standard for every country of the world. Some progress has been made since then, most notably with Brazil's "Internet Bill of Rights" legislation, which by all accounts should substantially further Brazil's progress toward a high level of freedom of expression. Some of the proposed ideas include:

• Affordable access to a universally available communications platform
• The protection of personal user information and the right to communicate in private
• Freedom of expression online and offline
• Diverse, decentralized and open infrastructure
• Neutral networks that don’t discriminate against content or users

However, a purely political bill of rights does not go far enough. It does not guarantee an Internet where people are free to speak their minds, so long as they remain subject to undeclared, severe economic pressures that make them worry about everything they have ever said or done in their lives. Surveys find that less than half of people even in modern Westernized countries feel safe to express their feelings online. Though sometimes the reason is political prosecution, as Justin Carter can attest, more often people are afraid that they will be fired, dismissed from school, or otherwise punished by their economic masters, even for things that are fully legal under present law. Wikipedia, as one of the sites where people can make the statements that one day will be held against them, has the moral obligation to pioneer strong safeguards to stop that from happening.

Economic discrimination

The resignation under fire of Brendan Eich (CEO of Mozilla) over a $1,000 donation to a once-popular political cause illustrates the problem we are up against. In a case like this, cyberbullying becomes the predominant force in corporate governance, and no one, not even a CEO, is safe from having everything they've ever said and done scrutinized and held against them. This kind of "opposition research" is against Wikipedia policy, but that doesn't mean we haven't seen it here - it has become all too common for WMF or Wikimedia chapter employees to be targeted based on their opinions or legitimate content that they have contributed, and as a community we have not done the right thing in every case.

We should recognize that this kind of discrimination is morally wrong from the example of McCarthyism, which left a wound in America's political psyche matched by the cruelty of its interventions in small, poor countries against which few dared protest. We should also recognize that disposing of good employees over ideological objections to personal postings is simply bad business. If we engage in things like this, even at the "voluntary" and "private" level of organizational governance, what economic advantage do we retain over more oppressive countries that do so politically?

Therefore, it is proposed that Wikipedia should lead that way in drafting an Internet Employees' Bill of Rights, a policy that Wikimedia should seek to develop for its own benefit. No one working or seeking to work at WMF organizations should ever be made to feel that whenever they chat with their friends on social media, that is part of their resume.

Once this standard is established, it should be proselytized other employers, starting with the major Internet employers, who presently suffer image problems due to the NSA surveillance and have tended to favor free speech online at the political level. No one has more to lose from an Internet that reads like people pushing resumes at each other than they do.

Proposed: The Internet Employees' Bill of Rights

• Nondiscrimination. In addition to the established nondiscrimination laws, the employer shall not discriminate against or punish people for prior appearances in potentially embarrassing but legal circumstances, such as pornography, or for their prior political statements and beliefs. The employer shall restrict any present restrictions on outside employment or appearances to what is pragmatically necessary, and to be clear in advance what these restrictions are. The employer shall not discriminate based on personal appearance or taste.
• Defense of vulnerable employees. In respect for the need to equalize the rights of women and to avoid continuing the victimization of human trafficking, prostitution cases should be discounted from background checks, as should known political prosecutions. Even when employees are the target of bullying campaigns, the long-term interest of an employer is to deny bullies the power to alter employment decisions.
• The protection of personal user information and the right to communicate in private. Employers shall not mandate that employees pitch their products to friends and family, or otherwise use their uncompensated time to build a public persona that the employer approves of. Employers shall not demand privileged access, such as passwords or "friend" status, for accounts that are issued by third parties to the employee as an individual (such as Wikipedia and Facebook).
• Freedom of expression online and offline. No one shall be denied or dismissed from employment based on their use, within the law and on their own time, of their freedom of expression.
• Neutral networks. Employers should stick to paying employees in money, rather than issuing extensive fringe benefits in personal communications devices or access that are subject to restrictive terms and conditions or infringements on privacy.
• Criminal charges. If somebody is charged in a crime, they should only be fired if convicted. If this was not the case, bullies could accuse whatever people they want, in order to ruin their lives.