Participants at a global UN conference in the French capital on Wednesday urged the international community to seek better protection against online disinformation and hate speech.
Hundreds of officials, tech firm representatives, academics and members of civil society were invited to a two-day meeting hosted by the UN cultural fund to brainstorm on how to best vet content while upholding human rights.
“Digital platforms have changed the way we connect and face the world, the way we face each other,” said UNESCO director-general Audrey Azoulay in her opening remarks.
But “only by evaluating this technological revolution can we ensure that it is a revolution that does not compromise human rights, freedom of expression and democracy.”
UNESCO has warned that despite the benefits in communication and knowledge sharing, social media platforms rely on algorithms that “often prioritize engagement over safety and human rights”.
Philippine investigative journalist Maria Ressa, who jointly won the Nobel Prize in 2021 for exposing abuses under former president Rodrigo Duterte, said social media allowed lies to flourish.
“Our current communication system is lying to us,” he told the audience.
“We only focus on content moderation. It’s like there’s a dirty river. We take a glass… we clean the water and then throw it back,” he said.
But “the thing to do is to go to the factory that destroyed the river, kill it and then resuscitate the river.”
He said that, during an online campaign against him for his work, he had received up to 98 hate messages every hour.
More than half sought to undermine his credibility as a journalist including false claims that he was spreading “fake news”, he said.
Others are personal attacks targeting their gender, “skin color and sexuality” or even “threats of rape and murder”.
‘This has to stop’
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula previously addressed the conference in a letter, after disaffected supporters of his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro on January 8 attacked the presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court in Brasilia.
“What happened that day was the culmination of a campaign, which started before, and used, as ammunition, lies and disinformation,” he said.
“For the most part, these campaigns are nurtured, organized, and distributed through a number of digital platforms and messaging applications,” he said.
“This must stop. The international community must, from now on, be able to provide effective answers to these challenging questions of our time.
Facebook whistleblower Christopher Wylie also contributed to the discussion.
The data scientist has revealed how he helped Cambridge Analytica, founded by former US president Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, use unauthorized personal data harvested from Facebook to help shape a series of elections, including the victory of US president Trump in 2016. .
“Many countries around the world have enacted or are currently considering national legislation to address the dissemination of harmful content,” UNESCO said in a statement ahead of the conference.
But “some of these laws risk violating human rights, especially the right to freedom of expression and opinion”, it warned.