WorthyNews: UN To Push For Global Narrative Using AI and Media (Worthy News In-Depth)

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By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

NEW YORK (Worthy News) – A United Nations committee has agreed to tackle “hate speech” and “misinformation” globally through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and media, despite worries the approach may “stifle pluralistic debate.”

The U.N. General Assembly Fourth Committee (also known as the Special Political and Decolonization Committee) adopted the resolution as the U.N. seeks to streamline its worldwide narrative on themes like climate change, digital identification, and digital money.

The Fourth Committee also voted for a resolution on our “Our Common Agenda” plan, which includes rolling out the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs aim to achieve “peace and prosperity for people and the planet.”

However, to achieve that aim, preferably by 2030, people have to follow U.N. “SDGs” guidelines on, for instance, “climate change,” which critics say will involve more surveillance and censorship.

The “Our Common Agenda” resolution also includes rolling out bank account-linked digital identification documents (IDs) that experts warn will give states more control over people’s spending.

Yet, with alternative media and other critical voices questioning these policies, the U.N.‘s Department of Global Communications will be asked “to make specific efforts to raise awareness about misinformation and disinformation,” according to the resolution seen by Worthy News.

The Department will also be asked to consider “the impact of AI and propose ways to address such a challenge in accordance with international human rights law, within existing resources.”

FAKE NEWS?

While AI has been used to spread fake news or to suppress dissent, the technology can also help to gather actual facts more efficiently.

Yet it wasn’t clear how both resolutions would encourage open debates within the U.N., including authoritarian and democratic member states.

Argentina was among those voicing concern about the U.N.’s use of the term “hate speech,” adding that it can be abused to prevent pluralistic debate.

Its representative “dissociated himself from paragraphs in resolution B that refer to hate speech, to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Our Common Agenda,” according to a transcript seen by Worthy News.

Islamic-ruled Pakistan was among the most vocal states disagreeing with Argentina’s concerns. It even suggested pressuring tech giants such as Google and Meta to follow the U.N. narratives.

Pakistan said the tech giants “should be “collaborated with” and warned they should not put profit before the need to join “the war on disinformation.”

Speakers also highlighted the role of journalists in providing “accurate information” about armed conflicts and crises and the need to protect them.

JOURNALISTS KILLED

Numerous journalists have been killed, many in armed conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon sparked by the Hamas massacre of some 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, last year, delegates noted.

Ukraine’s delegate also mentioned Viktoria Roshchyna, a Ukrainian journalist who documented Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022.

Russia detained her, and “On the 10th of October, it was revealed that the journalist lost her life,” he said.

The delegate “also pointed to the Russian Federation’s attacks on television towers in his country and its attempts to disrupt broadcasting in Ukraine,” the transcript said.

Ukraine’s delegate accused the Kremlin of supporting Russian journalists of “glorifying its war crimes” even as “inside Russia, there is a systematic and brutal crackdown on civil society.”

He “condemned the Russian Federation’s use of hybrid information warfare tactics” to “justify the criminal actions of its armed forces and dehumanize Ukrainians,” the U.N. said.

Britain accused Russia “of weaponizing disinformation,” noting “the rise in anti-U.N. disinformation in Mali, which coincided with the arrival of mercenaries from the Russian Federation’s Wagner Group” of mercenaries.

BLUE HELMETS

“This led to a rise in attacks against peacekeepers and the forced closure of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) after it became the most dangerous peacekeeping mission in the world,” Britain’s delegate stressed.

Moscow “also designed a disinformation campaign to influence the outcome of the Republic of Moldova’s presidential election, she said, adding: “We cannot be complacent.”

Russia’s “disinformation campaigns” threaten lives, including those of U.N. peacekeepers, “eroding trust between the ‘blue helmets’” or peacekeepers “and communities they serve.”

Moscow has denied wrongdoing.

The Kremlin consistently accuses the West of spreading misinformation while several of Russia’s media outlets were closed in the European Union and other countries such as Israel.

Yet despite different views on what amounts to “misinformation” or “hate speech,” the U.N. has made clear that it will push for a narrative on what it considers critical issues for the world.

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