A/HRC/32/38 principle of net neutrality, it remains a subject of debate whether they may be permissible in areas genuinely lacking Internet access. 50. State regulation in this area is patchy and uncertain. A few States have recognized the general importance of network neutrality. Romania, for example, has stated that it is “in favour of all initiatives to guarantee that online information can be accessed in a meaningful way by the entire population”.33 Fewer States have provided specific legal protection.34 In early 2016, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India issued a regulation prohibiting service providers from offering or charging “discriminatory tariffs for data services being offered or charged to the consumer on the basis of content”.35 Some form of network neutrality has been adopted in law or policy by countries including Brazil, Chile, the Netherlands and the United States. 2. Internal policies and practices 51. Intermediaries’ policies and rules may have significant effects on the freedom of expressionWhile terms of service are the primary source of regulation, design and engineering choices may also affect the delivery of content. Terms of service 52. Terms of service, which individuals typically must accept as a condition to access a platform, often contain restrictions on content that may be shared. These restrictions are formulated under local laws and regulations and reflect similar prohibitions, including those against harassment, hate speech, promotion of criminal activity, gratuitous violence and direct threats.36 Terms of service are frequently formulated in such a general way that it may be difficult to predict with reasonable certainty what kinds of content may be restricted. The inconsistent enforcement of terms of service has also attracted public scrutiny. Some have argued that the world’s most popular platforms do not adequately address the needs and interests of vulnerable groups; for example, there have been accusations of reluctance “to engage directly with technology-related violence against women, until it becomes a public relations issue”.37 At the same time, platforms have been criticized for overzealous censorship of a wide range of legitimate but (perhaps to some audiences) “uncomfortable” expressions.38 Lack of an appeals process or poor communication by the company about why content was removed or an account deactivated adds to these concerns. Terms of service that require registration linked to an individual’s real name or evidence to demonstrate valid use of a pseudonym can also disproportionately inhibit the ability of vulnerable groups or civil society actors in closed societies to use online platforms for expression, association or advocacy. 53. States also increasingly rely on terms of service to remove content they find objectionable. The Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism has observed that several States have established contentremoval mechanisms that often seek the removal of content that, while lawful, might be regarded as extremist (see A/HRC/31/65). The Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit in the United Kingdom, for example, is dedicated to removing online content of a “violent extremist or terrorist nature”, including through methods that “use websites’ content33 34 35 36 37 38 14 Submission of the Government of Romania. Mackinnon and others, Fostering Freedom Online, p. 80. Prohibition of Discriminatory Tariffs for Data Services Regulations, 2016. See, for example, Facebook terms of service, sect. 3 (7); Twitter terms of service; YouTube Community Guidelines; and Reddit. See https://ourinternet-files.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/no24_web_2.pdf. See onlinecensorship.org.