SaaS Provider Two: A collaboration solution that allows individuals to contribute to applications’ source code may surface harmful user-generated content, which leads to offline violence. SaaS Provider Three: A plant management software offers internal communication function- ality for factory workers and all workers can see the content posted by others. Some of the messages contain discriminatory speech, leading to the marginalization of certain groups of workers. Cumulative Impacts • The removal of a specific piece of content by a group of SaaS providers, or their decision not to offer integration to a certain service, may impact freedom of expression and restrict access to information. • If a growing number of SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS providers implement similar gating processes to address content-related issues at the same time, they may unintentionally infringe on human rights by limiting use of certain SaaS services to an entire swath of actors. This could, in turn, result in restrictions to freedom of expression, creating less room for dissent, or inhibiting downstream customers from accessing technologies that enable the realization of human rights, such as education, health, social services, or other critical goods and services. Relevant Human Rights Instruments Relevant human rights for this impact area include, but are not limited to: • Right to freedom of expression and to seek information: Article 19 of the UDHR states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” • Right to non-discrimination: Article 2 of the UDHR states, “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.” • Right to life, liberty, and security: Article 3 of the UDHR states, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” • Right to participate in cultural life: Article 15 of the ICESCR states that everyone has the right “to take part in cultural life.” Assessment of Severity and Management Factors Severity: Content-related issues are relevant to SaaS services that include an open platform or marketplace. Therefore, the scope of impact includes SaaS end-users that interact with such features. The scale of impact can be very high, depending on what content is surfaced. Harmful content may also lead to secondary impacts that may not be remediable. Any SaaS provider who directly interacts with user-generated content needs to consider how they impact individuals’ freedom of expression and access to information. This includes internal-facing services with limited user-generated content. 27 Human Rights Assessment of the Software-as-a-Service Sector