A/HRC/38/35 body.34 The 2014 Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability, developed by a coalition of civil society experts, identify essential principles that should guide any intermediary liability framework. 15. Imposition of company obligations. Some States impose obligations on companies to restrict content under vague or complex legal criteria without prior judicial review and with the threat of harsh penalties. For example, the Chinese Cybersecurity Law of 2016 reinforces vague prohibitions against the spread of “false” information that disrupts “social or economic order”, national unity or national security; it also requires companies to monitor their networks and report violations to the authorities. 35 Failure to comply has reportedly led to heavy fines for the country’s biggest social media platforms.36 16. Obligations to monitor and rapidly remove user-generated content have also increased globally, establishing punitive frameworks likely to undermine freedom of expression even in democratic societies. The network enforcement law (NetzDG) in Germany requires large social media companies to remove content inconsistent with specified local laws, with substantial penalties for non-compliance within very short time frames.37 The European Commission has even recommended that member States establish legal obligations for active monitoring and filtering of illegal content. 38 Guidelines adopted in 2017 in Kenya on the dissemination of social media content during elections require platforms to “pull down accounts used in disseminating undesirable political contents on their platforms” within 24 hours.39 17. In the light of legitimate State concerns such as privacy and national security, the appeal of regulation is understandable. However, such rules involve risks to freedom of expression, putting significant pressure on companies such that they may remove lawful content in a broad effort to avoid liability. They also involve the delegation of regulatory functions to private actors that lack basic tools of accountability. Demands for quick, automatic removals risk new forms of prior restraint that already threaten creative endeavours in the context of copyright. 40 Complex questions of fact and law should generally be adjudicated by public institutions, not private actors whose current processes may be inconsistent with due process standards and whose motives are principally economic.41 18. Global removals. Some States are demanding extraterritorial removal of links, websites and other content alleged to violate local law. 42 Such demands raise serious 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Supreme Court of India, Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, decision of 24 March 2015. Articles 12 and 47; Human Rights in China submission, 2016, p. 12. For comments on an earlier draft of the Cybersecurity Law, see communication No. OL CHN 7/2015. See also Global Voices, “Netizen Report: Internet censorship bill looms large over Egypt”, 16 March 2018; Republic of South Africa, Films and Publications Amendment Bill (B 61—2003). PEN America, Forbidden Feeds: Government Controls on Social Media in China (2018), p. 21. Act to Improve Enforcement of the Law in Social Networks (Network Enforcement Act), July 2017. See communication No. OL DEU 1/2017. European Commission, recommendation on measures to effectively tackle illegal content online (last updated: 5 March 2018). See communication No. OL KEN 10/2017; Javier Pallero, “Honduras: new bill threatens to curb online speech”, Access Now, 12 February 2018. See European Commission, Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, COM (2016) 593 final, art. 13; Daphne Keller, “Problems with filters in the European Commission’s platforms proposal”, Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society, 5 October 2017; Fundación Karisma submission, 2016, pp. 4–6. Under European Union law, search engines are required to determine the validity of claims brought under the “right to be forgotten” framework. European Court of Justice, Google Spain v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos and Mario Costeja González (case C-131/12), judgment (Grand Chamber) of 13 May 2014; submissions by ARTICLE 19, pp. 2−3 and Access Now, pp. 6–7; Google, “Updating our ‘right to be forgotten’ Transparency Report”; Theo. Bertram and others, Three Years of the Right to be Forgotten (Google, 2018). See, for example, PEN America, Forbidden Feeds, pp. 36–37; Supreme Court of Canada, Google Inc. v. Equuestek Solutions Inc., judgment of 28 June 2017; European Court of Justice, Google Inc. v. 7