Whether or not it has any strong hopes of enacting real change, the UN’s report calls states to promote online freedoms in five key ways (paraphrased):
- Protect citizen’s rights to speak anonymously on the internet.
- Refrain from building, using, or enforcing real-name databases that link online activity to user identity (even those used by popular companies like Facebook).
- Acknowledge that national security and anti-terrorism concerns can’t be used to restrict freedom of expression except in the most dire circumstances where there is an imminent and legitimate threat.
- Take meaningful steps to ensure the privacy of personal data.
- Decriminalize defamation.