A/HRC/35/22 6. Effective remedies 73. While certain aspects of corporate responsibility have advanced in recent years, remedial steps often seem omitted from the private sector’s agenda. Yet remedies are a key pillar of corporate responsibility and should be provided whenever businesses “have caused or contributed to adverse impacts” (see A/HRC/17/31, annex, principle 22). States bear the primary duty to remediate business-related human rights abuses, particularly those they instigate, such as overbroad content restriction, unlawful user data requests and disproportionate surveillance. Yet companies that fail to implement appropriate due diligence measures and other safeguards may also cause or contribute to such abuses. In those situations, companies should “provide for or cooperate in their remediation through legitimate processes” (Ibid.). 74. Remedies may include both financial and non-financial means (Ibid., principle 27). When freedom of expression is impaired, appropriate remedies may include access to grievance mechanisms and information about the violation and guarantees of nonrepetition.116 Users whose accounts have been wrongly suspended may want the satisfaction of being heard and provided with explanations and assurances of non-repetition.117 75. Pre-existing policies and mechanisms could also be reformed or strengthened to address violations of freedom of expression. For example, a provider could make improvements to its content restriction policy and the training of its content moderation teams to reduce the likelihood of unfair website takedowns or overbroad content restrictions such as filtering. Customer complaint mechanisms could also be updated to allow users to flag network traffic management practices, commercial filtering classifications and other content restrictions they deem to be unduly restrictive or unfair. V. Conclusions and recommendations 76. Individuals depend on digital access to exercise fundamental rights, including freedom of opinion and expression, the right to life and a range of economic, social and cultural rights. They also regularly face obstacles to access: from shutdowns to surveillance. The present report is largely concerned with the obstacles that deny, deter or exclude expression through blunt reliance on digital censorship. The present report has not addressed other serious obstacles — such as the lack of adequate connectivity infrastructure, high costs of access imposed by government, gender inequality, and language barriers — that also may constitute forms of censorship. 118 Much of it therefore focuses on the roles and obligations of States. But States increasingly exercise censorship through the private sector. The report has aimed not only to address the constraints on State action under human rights law but also the principles that private actors should observe in respecting human rights. Key recommendations, already highlighted in the analysis above, are set out below. States and the Human Rights Council 77. The Human Rights Council, in its resolution 32/13, condemned unequivocally measures to intentionally prevent or disrupt access to or dissemination of information online in violation of international human rights law, and called upon all States to refrain from and cease such measures. This condemnation, which is critical to the Council’s promotion of human rights online, should be supplemented and specified. Intentional prevention or disruption of access includes any action that shuts down or 116 117 118 20 Telecommunications Industry Dialogue submission, p. 17. Peter Micek and Jeff Landale, “Forgotten pillar: the Telco remedy plan”, Access Now (May 2013), p. 6. Global Commission on Internet Governance submission; Arco Iris Libre de Cuba, Centro de Información Hablemos Press, Centro de Información Legal CubaLex, Mesa de Diálogo de la Juventud Cubana Plataforma Femenina Nuevo País, “Situación del derecho a la libertad de opinion y expression en Cuba” (Situation of the right to freedom of opinion and expression in Cuba) (July 2016), p. 20.