This paper addresses the issue of how a certain question or phenomenon is transformed into a CSR issue. Informed by an institutional work perspective, the paper shows how a technological means of communication, the Internet, is framed as a CSR issue by the (Swedish) state and related to the responsibilities of business, finding its way into, for example, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. From an analytical point of view, the institutional work process is understood in terms of association, formalization, and narration. The means of communication, the Internet, is actively associated with human rights issues. Through formalization, the issue of freedom on the Internet finds its way into ‘soft regulation’. Politicians, in turn, refer to their own achievements in a narrative process to highlight the importance of the topic. As for generalization, the issues brought up as central to the institutional work process inform our perspective of how phenomena actually become CSR issues in a political and business context.