World leaders will have their work cut out for them as they gather at the United Nations General Assembly the week of Sept. 17. They will look into the climate crisis, food insecurity, the invasion of Ukraine and more.
According to officials, the U.N. is also looking to win the information war. It’s part of an effort to “massively ramp up” the response to online “disinformation.”
Melissa Fleming, undersecretary-general for Global Communications, spoke at the Nobel Prize Summit in May. She gave a speech called “Healing Our Troubled Information Ecosystem,” and said the United Nations is currently developing a code of conduct for information integrity on digital platforms.
Fleming says the goal is to slow the spread of both misinformation and disinformation, as well as hate speech on social media platforms.
According to the U.N., misinformation is the “accidental spread of inaccurate information,” and disinformation is “inaccurate information that intends to deceive and is spread in order to do serious harm.”
“So, we’re creating at the U.N. a central capacity to monitor and also have the ability to rapidly react when mis- and disinformation and hate speech is not just threatening our people, our operations, but also, the issues and the causes that we’re working on,” Fleming said. “But also, we’re going to be gearing up our verified initiative around climate change and developing this U.N. code of conduct on information integrity and digital platforms hoping to set global standards that we can all advocate around so we can collectively work for a more humane internet.”
According to Fleming, since Elon Musk acquired X — formerly known as Twitter — and fired hundreds of employees, there is no way for U.N. officials to call someone for help at X in flagging content that’s misleading, hateful, abusive or inciting violence.
“We’re now seeing that almost anyone can promote disinformation for the price of a blue tick,” Fleming said.
Without content moderators, X developed public Community Notes with the goal of adding context to potentially misleading posts.
Fleming says the U.N. has teamed up with the platform to elevate reliable information around COVID-19 and climate to amplify what they call “trusted messengers.”
At the end of her speech, Fleming said the U.N. is looking to “join forces and heal our information ecosystem,” which they’re planning to do through the new code of conduct.
Last year, the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council called on the U.N. to respond to the spread of online disinformation.
In August of 2022, the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres released his Countering Disinformation report, which states the General Assembly is concerned over disinformation on social media platforms, and welcomes efforts “to promote international cooperation in countering disinformation… for the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
Back in February, Guterres said they’re calling on action from tech companies and governments to help stop the spread of misinformation and disinformation online.
Musk responded to Guterres on X saying, “The U.N. is more likely to cause, rather than prevent, disinformation.”
As of right now, there’s no enforcement in place and it is unknown what action U.N. officials plan to take.
Monday, Sept. 18, Guterres and other U.N. officials asked for input in developing code of conduct for information on digital platforms that “seeks to provide a concerted global response to information threats that is firmly rooted in human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression and opinion and access to information.”
People can submit their opinions and suggestions on the U.N. website until Dec. 1, 2023.
