The United Nations is developing a code of conduct for information integrity on digital platforms in close consultation with a broad range of civil society groups. The objective is to establish a gold standard guiding actions to strengthen information integrity while vigorously protecting human rights. IT for Change submitted written inputs in response to the consultation initiated by the Department of Global Communications of the United Nations.
In our submission, we provided comments and actionable suggestions for implementing a set of nine principles proposed in the UN Secretary-General’s policy brief on information integrity on digital platforms, issued in June 2023. These principles include: (i) commitment to information integrity; (ii) respect for human rights; (iii) support for independent media; (iv) transparency efforts; (v) user empowerment; (vi) strengthened research and data access; (vii) scaled-up responses; (viii) stronger disincentives; and (ix) enhanced trust and safety.
We also proposed including the principle of 'Strong Accountability and Liability Framework' to bind the commitment of digital platforms to information integrity. In this regard, we recommended that multilateral systems should adopt a binding consensus to enforce corporate accountability for preventing hate speech and incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence in platform environments, including algorithmic content moderation and curation. Furthermore, Member States should adopt comprehensive ex-ante and ex-post accountability measures through democratic legislative processes.
Read the full submission here.