UNESCO claims to want to prevent misinformation from spreading, it has hardly been neutral, or objective

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO sounded an alarm in November 2023 about the intensification of disinformation and hate speech online, which constitutes in her words “Is a major threat to stability and social cohesion.” To put an end to this scourge she unveiled UNESCO’s action plan, the result of extensive worldwide consultations that was backed by a global opinion survey underlining the urgent need for action.

UNESCO is the acronym for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Their website shares that they contribute to peace and security by promoting international: cooperation in education, sciences, culture, communication and information. UNESCO promotes knowledge sharing and the free flow of ideas to accelerate mutual understanding and a more perfect knowledge of each other’s lives. UNESCO’s programmes contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals defined in the 2030 Agenda, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015.

Recently, UNESCO released their action plan to regulate social media platforms. The guideline is a 59 page document outlining a series of goals and steps that should be taken by Member States.

The publication of UNESCO’s action plan was accompanied by an opinion poll conducted by IPSOS for UNESCO, with over 8,000 respondents across 16 countries where elections will be held in 2024. It shows that 85% of citizens are worried about the impact of online disinformation, at a time when social media platforms have become the primary source of information for a large majority of them.

The same survey indicated that 87% of citizens believe that this misinformation has already had a major impact on their country’s political life and fear that it will influence the results of their country’s elections in the next year. As a result, 88% are calling on governments and regulators to resolve this problem quickly by regulating social media.

On the surface, the paper seems harmless enough, but as with most things, the devil is in the details.

Going through this, the thoughts that come to mind are the CRTC, and Bills C-11 and C-18. There’s a strong reluctance to accept any sort of Government interference with media access.

The paper talks about the importance of having an independent media, with a diversity of perspectives. Nothing wrong with that. However, there are a few places where the idea is raised of subsidizing “independent” media, presumably with Government funds. While a viable media is important, this creates an obvious conflict of interest.

There are also several mentions of online media being used in ways to help advance the U.N. Sustainable Development Agenda, a.k.a. Agenda 2030. It’s unclear what would happen if online platforms were used in ways to undermine its implementation.

There are repeated calls to use digital platforms to respect and protect human rights. This is fine in principle, but it’s undefined, and presumably arbitrary, what those rights are.

Paragraph 38 talks about the need for there to be an ongoing relationship with digital platforms and “credible” news sources. Of course, the term credible is left undefined. It’s also unclear what, if any, voices that media who aren’t considered credible would have.

Paragraph 45 gets into the topic of “compliance mechanisms.” It’s rather chilling, as it mentions the possibility of regulators making final decisions with respect to the rules on platforms.

Paragraph 49 addresses the idea of having checks and balances. This sounds fine, until one asks what structures would have to be put in place to begin with.

Paragraph 52 covers “investing” in so-called independent media, in order to make it more sustainable. If the only way that independents can survive is by getting bailout money, then that would convert them into Government employees. No need to ban critics when they can simply be bought off.

Paragraph 54 talks about having: (a) national; (b) regional; and (c) global governance systems put in place, to safeguard freedom of expression, access to information, and other human rights. There’s also a brief mention about limiting expression to protect human rights.

Perhaps the most interesting sections are paragraphs 68-73, which outline how an “independent regulator” would work. Of course, how independent can it be when it reports to the very people it’s supposed to keep an eye on.

In fairness, there are portions that are noble, such as 72(e) and (f) which aim to limit conflicts of interest in the forms of gifts or lobbying. Yes, there are parts of this paper that I did give the side-eye too, but there are portions of the paper that are quite good.

Paragraph 115, and its many subparagraphs, detail how due process information and human rights data should be integrated at all stages of moderation. On the surface, there’s nothing wrong with this, but who will be setting the standards?

Paragraphs 116 to 118 offer suggestions for collecting user demographic data for research purposes. While it’s supposed to be anonymized, there’s not enough specifics included as to its use.

Paragraph 143 gives brief guidelines about how platforms should conduct themselves during emergencies and armed conflicts. It suggests developing cooperation with trusted partners, independent media organizations, and other reliable flaggers.

Again, as I noted earlier, this UNESCO paper seems so harmless on the surface, but it’s really vague at times when clarity is needed. While UNESCO claims to want to prevent misinformation from spreading, it has hardly been neutral, or objective. Only recently, it was telling people to only trust official sources for information on the “pandemic”.