The BHR Group Digital Rights Careers Newsletter - Issue 19

Feb 01, 2024

Dear Colleagues:

Our professional path is shaped by so many factors throughout our life, and this month’s guest practitioner – Jason Pielemeier – embodies the saying that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Read about Jason’s decision to follow in his parents’ footsteps as he started his career in the Peace Corps, beginning a career centered on service and on working with a variety of rightsholders and other stakeholders in the fields of environmental and social justice and eventually in the world of digital rights.

I met Jason a decade ago when he was leading on Internet freedom issues at the State Department and have admired his deeply principled and practical approach to challenges and opportunities in this often vexing sector that touches all our lives personally or professionally, or both. If you know Jason then you know he has a remarkable command of the details on law and policy in the global technology sector while also framing his thinking and decision-making on a strategic vision of a human rights centered Internet. Jason also approaches his work with a lot of humility. He won’t tell you (so I will) that as a university adjunct professor he’s been a terrific teacher (just repeating the words of his students) as well as a mentor to multiple fellowship recipients over the years, always providing quiet guidance and assurance to students and fellows.

Jason is now Executive Director of the Global Network Initiative (GNI) and has to think about details and strategy every day in this multi-stakeholder initiative. I wrote this about GNI back in 2018 and hope it’s still mostly true today: The need for a global organization with GNI’s unique multistakeholder structure focused on protecting and advancing freedom of expression and privacy online is at its greatest point in the history of the ICT sector. GNI’s members have forged a remarkable degree of trust, earning it while traveling, for more than a decade, across the peaks and valleys of collective problem-solving in deeply challenging circumstances. Trust that must be demonstrated regularly in word and deed by companies and non-companies alike. GNI has become one of the leading multistakeholder initiatives in any industry, increasing awareness and taking a stance on critical issues and advancing meaningful improvements to companies’ practices on human rights issues globally. We’re all fortunate to have Jason at the helm of this important global organization, leading GNI at a time of so much peril and so much promise in the technology sector.

As you read through Jason’s answers to the questions below, I encourage you to take special note of his call to public service as he asks that you consider serving in government at some point in your career. Thank you Jason for your inclusive leadership and for giving us an example of service across and with different stakeholders groups.

Michael Samway
The Business and Human Rights Group
Website: www.thebhrgroup.com

Guest Spotlight: Jason Pielemeier

As Executive Director of the Global Network Initiative (GNI), Jason leads a dynamic, multi-stakeholder, human rights collaboration, building consensus for the advancement of freedom of expression and privacy among technology companies, academics, human rights and media freedom groups, and investors. Jason previously served as Deputy Director and Policy Director at GNI.

Prior to joining GNI, Jason was a Special Advisor at the U.S. Department of State, where he led the Internet Freedom, Business, and Human Rights section in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. In that role, Jason worked with colleagues across the U.S. government, counterparts in other governments, and stakeholders around the world to promote and protect responsible business conduct and human rights online.

Jason is a graduate of Northwestern University and Yale Law School. Between degrees, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer and later led an innovative land titling and conservation project in rural Guatemala. After law school, he worked as a law clerk for the Honorable Raymond J. Dearie in the U.S. Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and as an Associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. He lives in Washington with his partner, kids, and dog.

What are some of the most formative period or events in your life that shaped your work in technology and human rights?

I trace my interest in human rights to my upbringing. My parents are both from small towns in the American midwest, and their adventurous spirits led them to answer President John F. Kennedy’s call to service by joining the newly-established Peace Corps (my mom served in Malaysian Borneo and my dad in the Ivory Coast). From there, they both went on to work in the field of international development, which led them (and subsequently myself and my sister) to live in Botswana, Liberia, and Brazil, with spells in between in Washington, DC. Living in these various countries and visiting projects my parents were working with in health clinics and schools, in slums and remote villages, afforded me a first hand education on inequality and injustice, and inspired me to value social justice and public service.
My interest in tech issues resulted from a slightly more circuitous path. After college, I followed in my parents’ footsteps and joined the Peace Corps. I served as an environmental management volunteer in a rural, Maya-Q’eqchi’ community in northern Guatemala, where circumstances and friends helped me understand the very direct ways that uncertainty around land tenure and property rights was leading to conflict, economic exclusion, and environmental impacts. The fact that “the law” (or its absence) could have so many clear and significant impacts in such a remote place led me to law school where I thought I would study property and conservation. However, once I got to law school, my mind was blown by all of the diverse and fascinating areas of law. I was fortunate to have numerous formative classes, clinics, and mentors, but in retrospect there are two particular experiences that I think helped lead me to where I am today. The first was participating in an Access to Knowledge seminar led by Professors Jack Balkin and Jochai Benkler, where I was exposed to a lot of really interesting academic work that was being done around theories of the commons, intellectual property, and digital rights. The second was participation in the Lowenstein Human Rights Clinic, where Professor Jim Silk and then Clinical Professor Molly Land helped me understand how human rights law could be actioned in support of vulnerable and marginalized communities.
After law school, a clerkship, and a short spell at a law firm, I joined the State Department where I had the privilege to work with another law school mentor, then-Legal Adviser Harold Koh, and the legendary human rights activist and business and human rights pioneer, Mike Posner, as well as other inspirational colleagues like Eileen Donohoe and Evelyn Aswad. During that time, I was given the opportunity to lead the Department’s Internet Freedom, Business, and Human Rights section, through which I became deeply familiar with those emerging areas of human rights practice. When I was ready to leave government in 2017, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to join the Global Network Initiative (GNI), which sits squarely at the intersection of internet freedom and business and human rights. The fact that people like Molly, Mike, Eileen, Evelyn, and others like Bennett Freeman and you, Michael, had their fingerprints on or were engaged with GNI gave me a lot of confidence that it was an organization worth joining.

Who are some people or an individual you’ve met during your work in this field who have had profound influence on your work? And in what way?

I spoke earlier about some of the people who mentored and inspired me earlier in my career. I have been overwhelmed by how many incredibly smart, dedicated, and kind people there are in the digital rights space. It really does feel special and unique, although I don’t have the lateral experience to be able to say that with confidence.
In addition to all of the aforementioned, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge just how supportive and inspirational GNI’s Independent Chair, David Kaye, and Vice-Chair, Agustina Del Campo, have been since I took on the Executive Director role in June 2022. Most people reading your newsletter are probably familiar with David and the seminal work he did as UN Special Rapporteur to build out understandings around the right to freedom of opinion and expression, especially in the digital context. Fewer have likely had the privilege to get to know what a kind, wickedly smart, funny, and thoughtful person he is. He is a real mensch and I feel so grateful to have been able to lean on his wisdom and friendship over the last few years. Agustina may not be as well known, but those who do know her will probably appreciate what an incredibly complementary team she forms with David, always asking sharp questions, providing thoughtful advice, thinking outside the box, and finding ways to constructively make what legendary US civil rights leader, John Lewis, famously called “good trouble.” I deeply treasure her mentorship and friendship.

What’s a specific event when you feel like your team’s or organization’s work (or your own work) was able to make a significant impact in the field of digital rights?

When I first joined GNI as Policy Director in 2017, there was still a broadly-shared view across the digital rights space that government interventions to regulate technology should be resisted. While the Snowden revelations undermined public trust in intermediaries, they increased skepticism of government in a much deeper manner. After the 2016 elections though, it became clear that some democratic governments would seek to regulate the content layer, and potentially other layers of the tech stack too. And that once they did, arguments against efforts by less-democratic governments would need to become more sophisticated.
In 2018, GNI formed a working group on intermediary liability stacked with luminaries like Agustina, Emma Llanso, Eileen, Mishi Choudhary, Molly, and others including tech company representatives. Over many meetings, we worked together to analyze existing and proposed approaches to content regulation, using the international human rights framework as our lens. We drafted a comprehensive report, which we then conducted virtual, multistakeholder consultations on in Africa, the EU, India, Europe, Pakistan, and the UK. After addressing the feedback we received, including from governments, we published our Content Regulation & Human Rights Policy Brief in October 2020.
That document, and more importantly the critical analysis, thought leadership, and conversations that went into it, had a profound effect on GNI and, in my opinion, the broader tech policy space. They not only informed our members’ thinking on these issues, but also helped shape the broader discourse in tangible ways. I have seen many of our recommendations reflected in approaches and modifications that were introduced in the Australian Online Safety Act, the EU Digital Services Act, the India Intermediary Guidelines, and the UK Online Safety Act. None of them are perfect, but they are all better as a result.
I was already convinced about the potential of multistakeholder initiatives when I joined GNI, but that experience demonstrated to me the power that they can have.

For current practitioners in this field, and given your own career experience, what are some considerations you think are worth taking into account when deciding whether to change sectors, say from civil society or academia to the private sector? Or from the private sector to government or civil society?

This is not exactly an answer but I do have one quick piece of not very sage advice: work in government at some point. It doesn’t need to be a career (although it can be a great one in some countries), but in addition to its intrinsic worth, spending a year or more in public service will help you understand the ways governments work, which will be tremendously useful in any other endeavor that involves public policy.

What are some of the non-mainstream sources you turn to when building knowledge or keeping informed on tech, policy, and human rights related issues? And what sources do you follow to keep current on the latest happenings in technology and politics today?

The BHR Group Digital Rights Careers Newsletter

The BHR Group Digital Rights Careers Newsletter - Issue 19

Guest Spotlight: Jason Pielemeier

Positions in Policy, Law, and Digital Rights

Civil Society/Non-Profits

Press/Media

Academia

International Organizations

Think Tanks/Research Institutions

Government

Industry

Industry Associations

Firms/Consultancies