Faced with the growing impact of misinformation through social media in the democratic life of countries, UNESCO presented this Monday a regulatory plan whose purpose is to prevent the spread fake news and it’s not obstructive Freedom of expression and press.
“This is about providing different parliaments and governments with tools that can inspire them when faced with this regulation,” said UNESCO Deputy Director-General for Communication and Information Tawfik Djelassi at a press conference in Paris.
Among the measures recommended by the Agency United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) includes creating moderators on platforms or taking specific self-regulatory measures.
“Social media has accelerated and amplified the spread of misinformation and hate speech that threaten public life, peace and stability,” said CEO Audrey Azoulay.
Over the past year and a half, the organization has collected more than 10,000 contributions from 134 countries to produce a 40-page document containing recommendations for governments, regulators, civil society and the platforms themselves.
Based on this document, which attempted to take into account the specificities of each region, UNESCO will hold a world conference of regulatory bodies next year to try to unify the criteria.
Azoulay noted that the text comes at a “pivotal moment” when more than 2.5 billion people will be called up to vote in elections next year in different countries.
UNESCO has released the results of a public opinion survey that shows that 87% of citizens surveyed in 16 of these countries believe that the outcome of elections will be affected by the spread of false information through social media.
Among the countries covered in the study, USA or Mexico, in addition to Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, India, Romania, South Africa or Ukraine.
Social networks, the preferred medium of information
Together they cover a third of the world’s population. The study authors emphasize that 56% of people with access to Internet They get information about current events through social media, which is higher than the percentage of those who turn to the media first. TV (44%).
This is despite the fact that the majority of the population trusts traditional media more.
Information via social media increases during election campaigns, says the study, which indicates that 68% of the population believe that these media are the main vectors of disinformation.
One of the main objectives of UNESCO recommendations for regulating social networks is to avoid obstacles to human rights, indicated the director of the department of freedom of speech and security journalists Guilherme Canela’s organization.
“The digital ecosystem is the greatest information revolution since the invention of the printing press. “UNESCO must continue to protect people,” Canela said, warning that “there are already countries that regulate the digital sector, but they do so by threatening it, and the challenge is to do this without restricting human rights.”
UNESCO aims to have “independent and public” regulators with a “clearly defined role and sufficient means” to enable them to carry out their mission, and to “work in close coordination” to prevent “digital companies from taking advantage of regulatory inequalities.” “between countries”.
The role of these regulators, key to the control system advocated by UNESCO, should be strengthened in “sensitive” situations, such as periods of elections or crises.
Additionally, he believes that “content moderation should be possible and effective,” and algorithms should be “accountable and transparent” so that “quantity does not trump reliability.”
The ultimate goal is for digital platforms to educate and train users to be critically aware.