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MANILA, Philippines – The Forum on Information and Democracy announced Wednesday, June 24, it had created a working group that would help respond to the problems related to online content, such as the epidemic of disinformation and misinformation and what the group terms as “information chaos.”
The steering committee, whose composition will be announced on July 6, will be co-chaired by Maria Ressa, CEO and executive editor of Rappler, and Marietje Schaake, a former member of the European Parliament and international policy director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center.
The group will be coordinated by the secretariat of the Forum, and will release a call for recommendations to help with the following issues:
- bringing online content moderation into compliance with international standards
- promoting the reliability of information
- regulating private messaging services that exploit the possibilities of the public space
- making digital platforms transparent about their business models and algorithmic choices
The call for contributions will be released in mid-July.
Christophe Deloire, chair of the Forum on Information and Democracy, said the working group aims “to promote a structural response to the phenomena of rumours and disinformation.”
“For anyone still doubting, the Covid-19 pandemic has confirmed the urgency of the need for action,” he explained. “In the face of such dangerous phenomena, we need systemic change, not partial measures.”
The Forum was launched in September 2019 at the UN General Assembly in New York and has now been signed by 37 countries.
Ressa said of the initiative: “When lies laced with anger and hate spread faster than facts, it poisons our information ecosystem and kills democracy. Without facts, there’s no integrity of markets or elections! I look forward to working with experts across the world in different fields to find solutions in our global battle for truth.”
“Navigating the information landscape where commercially driven curation, mis- and disinformation as well as coordinated inauthentic behavior are rampant, is no easy task for many internet users,” Schaake said.
“Journalism is key to uncover the power and politics of information governance,” Schaake added. “I am honored to work with a diverse group of experts to make free speech and democratic debate more resilient.” – Rappler.com
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