Human Rights Observatory, Hacker News Edition
Every story on Hacker News is evaluated against the 30 articles and Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What does tech content say about rights — and does the platform match?
Corpus: Hacker News submissions only — a predominantly US, English-speaking, technology-focused community. Scores reflect this sample, not global discourse.
Part of the Unratified project by Safety Quotient Lab — the U.S. signed an international economic rights covenant in 1977 and has never ratified it.
What we're finding

Most tech coverage engages with human rights — but unevenly. Freedom of Expression appears most often, while No Slavery scores lowest.

3 of 31 UDHR provisions show tension between what content says about rights and what the hosting site actually does — like a privacy article on a site that tracks you.

Transparency is low: the average disclosure score across all stories is 47%. See all findings →

These patterns — rights discussed but not backed by law — reflect a specific gap: the U.S. signed the international economic and social rights covenant in 1977 and has never ratified it. unratified.org is building the case for why AI makes closing it urgent.

UDHR Rights Heatmap content scores · says ≠ does
sort: | | | |
Foundation
P Preamble n=497
+0.27
497
1 Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood n=364
+0.23
364
2 Non-Discrimination n=271
+0.17
271
Security
3 Life, Liberty, Security n=294
+0.24
294
4 No Slavery n=105
+0.05
105
5 No Torture n=145
+0.11
145
Legal
6 Legal Personhood n=170
+0.13
170
7 Equality Before Law n=234
+0.18
234
8 Right to Remedy n=197
+0.18
197
9 No Arbitrary Detention n=140
+0.11
140
10 Fair Hearing n=166
+0.16
166
11 Presumption of Innocence n=139
+0.08
139
Privacy & Movement
12 Privacy n=437
+0.19
437
13 Freedom of Movement n=217
+0.19
217
14 Asylum n=127
+0.09
127
15 Nationality n=120
+0.08
120
Personal
16 Marriage & Family n=127
+0.07
127
17 Property n=279
+0.18
279
18 Freedom of Thought n=233
+0.21
233
Expression
19 Freedom of Expression n=707
+0.38
707
20 Assembly & Association n=296
+0.24
296
21 Political Participation n=271
+0.21
271
Economic & Social
22 Social Security n=258
+0.17
258
23 Work & Equal Pay n=329
+0.16
329
24 Rest & Leisure n=155
+0.09
155
25 Standard of Living n=316
+0.19
316
Cultural
26 Education n=477
+0.26
477
27 Cultural Participation n=530
+0.30
530
Order & Duties
28 Social & International Order n=340
+0.22
340
29 Duties to Community n=369
+0.19
369
30 No Destruction of Rights n=230
+0.17
230
Evidence Transparency — Weakest Fair Witness Ratios what's this? →
FW Ratio = High-evidence signals / total evidence signals. Lower = more inference-heavy.
Article Ratio %
Asylum
2%
Marriage & Family
2%
No Slavery
3%
Legal Personhood
4%
Nationality
5%
Presumption of Innocence
5%
Rest & Leisure
5%
Duties to Community
5%
Social & International Order
6%
No Torture
6%
Propaganda Landscape
Technique Distribution
loaded_language
184
appeal_to_fear
89
appeal_to_authority
66
causal_oversimplification
47
exaggeration
40
repetition
28
flag_waving
25
bandwagon
24
name_calling
17
false_dilemma
9
Top Flagged Stories
Who Speaks
individuals
395
institution
311
corporation
219
government
69
community
43
workers
12
marginalized
10
researchers
9
author
9
developers
6
Who Is Spoken About
individuals
313
corporation
285
institution
139
government
128
workers
120
marginalized
87
community
68
military_security
35
developers
28
users
25
Scope Distribution
global
464
national
164
unspecified
98
regional
20
local
13
Region Distribution
United States
218
United Kingdom
41
Europe
25
China
24
California
18
Japan
18
Canada
16
European Union
16
Germany
14
France
14
New York
12
San Francisco
12
Australia
12
Israel
11
Iran
9
HRCB Trend — 8 days
2026-02-25
avg HRCB eval count
2026-03-08
Reader Safety
experimental 4657 stories scored
avg PSQ
+0.2
threat exposure
6.7/10
trust conditions
6.8/10
resilience baseline
5.9/10
hostility index
5.8/10
authority dynamics
5.8/10
energy dissipation
5.0/10
regulatory capacity
4.9/10
cooling capacity
5.5/10
defensive architecture
4.4/10
contractual clarity
4.8/10
Domain Rights Profiles — Top 10 all sources →
Domain HRCB Stories Fingerprint
github.com +0.15 2874
www.youtube.com 0.00 464
twitter.com ND 340 --
www.nytimes.com ND 210 --
www.theguardian.com +0.34 183
en.wikipedia.org +0.47 158
www.reuters.com ND 150 --
arxiv.org +0.25 145
www.wsj.com -0.15 140
medium.com +0.18 137