Ladies and gentlemen, greetings from UN Headquarters in New York!

I am pleased to address all of you, participants at the 2023 Asahi World Forum.

As we gather here today, the world is in crisis.

We face multiple, cascading challenges.

Economies are still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, while simmering tensions ignite into fresh conflicts, And the climate emergency continues untamed.

Working together, we know that the international community can address these problems.

But not unless we recognize the hidden struggle at the core of all others: the fight for information integrity.

My job as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications is to inform people about these crises.

And spur meaningful action for change.

But global communication is facing its own crisis.

Hate speech, mis and disinformation disseminated online are damaging our world, holding back human progress, and efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

We’ve seen a surge in vicious disinformation and other harmful content in recent years.

It has leached from the margins into the mainstream, poisoning our whole information ecosystem.

Across the globe, weaponized information is fueling conflict, with combatants spreading hatred at scale, to amplify tensions and prolong violence.

We know of instances where lies that are spread on social media have helped governments convince ordinary people to murder, rape, or drive out their fellow citizens.

What’s more, disinformation is used to attack public institutions, eroding trust and impacting all areas of conflict prevention.

The United Nations itself is under attack.

Our peacekeeping operations are being targeted with false allegations, risking staff safety and impeding life-saving work in conflict zones.

It’s a similar story around climate action.

This summer we’ve seen a surge of mis- and disinformation, targeting record floods, wildfires and heatwaves. Climate change itself.

A pattern has emerged.

Whereby rumors and conspiracies dismiss warnings about extreme weather as part of a globalist hoax and deny the link with carbon emissions and global heating.

These narratives seek to dial down the danger and skew the significance of deadly disasters, from the apocalyptic floods in Libya to the devastating wildfires in Hawaii.

At the same time, internationally coordinated smear campaigns against climate activists, have long sought to silence voices of change, as they demand urgent action to ensure a livable earth, a livable future for our earth.

We simply don’t have time for these distractions.

When social media burst onto the scene, I have to say, we communicators were excited back then.

Digital platforms held so much promise.

We could engage people directly.

And move them to join us to improve the world.

These platforms have done much good.

They have helped grassroots movements organize.

They connected the isolated.

They reunited displaced families fleeing wars.

But before long we also saw a darker side.

Algorithms that prioritize engagement have also helped move extremist views into the mainstream.

Normalizing antisemitism, racism, and other hate speech.

And while disinformation isn’t a new threat, digital platforms have made it possible to instantly spread harmful hate and lies to billions around the world.

Few people are immune to their impacts.

The latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report found that record numbers now get their news from social media.

At the same time, a growing group of people also say they are worried about being exposed to mis and disinformation.

The world is crying out for a more humane online sphere with concerns also over huge leaps in generative AI providing fresh impetus for action.

These tools that are growing faster than any platform in history have unimaginable potential to address global challenges on one hand.

But they also have an equal capacity to corrupt and harm.

We’ve already seen AI generated distorted histories and fake profiles, or fantastical images and videos, presented – convincingly, persuasively – as fact traveling on social media.

The UN is welcoming calls for regulation of generative AI.

Yet whatever the future holds, it is clear that current approaches aren’t working.

And experience tells us that leaving it to the platforms alone is not going to work either.

The UN is tackling the information crisis as a key priority.

Dramatically scaling up our response and our capacity.

My team is developing a Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on Digital Platforms.

It will be firmly rooted in human rights, and it will set a global gold standard to make the digital sphere more humane.

In June we published a set of principles that are the basis for our consultations to develop this Code.

These principles call for a global commitment to information integrity, and for stronger disincentives to address disinformation as big business.

They call on platforms to consistently apply safety policies around the world, and to abandon business models that prioritize engagement over human rights, privacy, and safety.

And they offer ways to limit the impact of harms by boosting independent media and digital literacy and pushing for user empowerment.

One thing is clear.

The challenges we face can only be solved by closer cooperation.

We need everyone on board for this fight – from governments to civil society, media and academia.

I’d like to thank the organizers of the Asahi World Forum for this chance to raise these issues with you and to broaden our conversation.

There is no doubt that dialogue is the only way forward to help restore balance to our information ecosystem and integrity to our online public sphere.

Thank you.

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