How Social Media Companies Could Help Us Catch War Criminals: Daily Brief

Archiving evidence on social media after it's taken down; violent crackdown on protesters in Libya; a chance to improve health care in Ecuador; aiming to end repression in Zimbabwe; the most powerful blaming the most powerless in Russia; and the devastating fire at Europe's largest refugee camp should convince leaders to abandon failed policies.
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Social media platforms are taking down violent and hateful content - perfectly understandable - but working together with researchers and investigators, they should develop a system to ensure this material is archived elsewhere so it can be used to hold perpetrators to account.

Armed groups in Tripoli linked with Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) used lethal force to disperse largely peaceful anti-corruption protests in late August 2020 and arbitrarily detained, tortured, and disappeared people in the capital. 

Ecuador’s National Assembly has approved a new health code that would help all in Ecuador enjoy better access to health care. The bill, nearly 8 years in the making, was approved on August 25 by a vote of 79 to 58, and now requires the signature of President Lenín Moreno to become law. 

A high-level delegation from South Africa has been dispatched to Zimbabwe to try to find a solution to the country’s escalating economic and political crisis. The team, led by the head of South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) party Secretary-General Ace Magashule, should call on the government to urgently address the country’s deteriorating human rights situation.

Powerful politicians scapegoating powerless groups for a country's problem is all too common around the world. Russia provides a fresh example. 

The devastating fire at the massively overcrowded Moria camp in Greece should convince policy makers in Athens and across the EU to shift gears radically. In a hopeful sign, authorities are already starting to move some people to the mainland, as rights groups and observers have long advised, but much more is needed.

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