Collective action needed to tackle global information crisis, UN-led dialogue hears

The call came at the high-level Information Integrity Solutions Dialogue at UN Headquarters in New York during the high-level week of the 81st session of the General Assembly.

Co-hosted by Brazil, the UN Secretariat, the UN development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the event brought together practitioners and policymakers from across regions and sectors to examine how the UN Global Principles for Information Integrity and the Global Digital Compact can be put into practice.

Information integrity means ensuring reliable and accurate information is available to all, allowing people to make informed decisions, participate meaningfully in public life, and exercise their right to freedom of expression.

Participants warned that the rapid transformation of the information ecosystem, including the growing use of unregulated and untested artificial intelligence systems and other emerging technologies, is deepening existing risks.

“Today, a handful of companies still dominate and shape our global information architecture,” said Melissa Fleming, UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications.

“Their priorities remain the same: engagement, profit. Always placed above the public interest,” she said. “Today, information defenders – civil society, journalists, scientists and others – are still underfunded and under attack.”

“In short, we are deep into a global information crisis. The crisis has grown but so has our resolve.”

The Dialogue also showcased how governments, organizations and communities are responding, with an emphasis on turning shared principles into solutions at national and regional levels.

Climate information integrity was a central focus. Participants highlighted the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change as a model for connecting global norms with national realities and placing the Global South at the centre of solutions.

Projects supported by the Initiative include efforts to improve public access to evidence-based research, strengthen information literacy and community communications, and advance platform accountability.

Participants said many of these approaches could also be applied to other priorities, including elections, peace and security, child online safety, the protection of human rights defenders and disaster response.

The private sector also came under scrutiny, including business models that can incentivize harmful practices online. Speakers highlighted work with advertisers to promote human-rights-responsible advertising and reduce the inadvertent funding of harmful content and practices.

Trust was another recurring theme, with participants highlighting the growing difficulty of determining what is real and identifying accurate, reliable information. Proposed solutions emphasized community outreach and direct human engagement.

“The solutions we have are as wide-ranging as the threats we face,” Ms. Fleming said. “From climate to health, to democratic governance. From prevention to response. Together, we’re pursuing those solutions.”

Participants reaffirmed information integrity and the UN Global Principles as a common framework for bringing diverse actors together in support of a safer, more humane information ecosystem.

They also called for greater exchanges of knowledge and experience across regions and sectors, as well as increased investment to sustain and expand solutions that are already working.

As a concrete next step, the UN is developing the Global Information Integrity Exchange (GIIEx), which will connect practitioners, researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders working on solutions to information threats.

It will facilitate the sharing of research, tools, training materials, and policy developments, while connecting people working towards common information-integrity goals. The UN Centres of Excellence for Information Integrity and related initiatives will feed into the Exchange.

Participants also called for a pan-African UN-African Union conference on information integrity, greater availability of research tools and stronger protections for information integrity defenders.

The Dialogue was held during the Assembly’s high-level week in which artificial intelligence featured prominently in discussions on multilateralism, human rights, development, and global governance.

Opening the annual General Debate on 22 September, Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted the speed of AI development and called for reliable guardrails to limit potential harm while allowing innovation to continue. He also stressed the need to involve governments, businesses, scientists, civil society, and academia.

The impact of AI on children was also in focus. On 22 September, the Coalition for Children’s Rights and Protection in the Age of Artificial Intelligence brought together global leaders to strengthen cooperation on protecting children’s rights and safety in the digital age.

That meeting launched a roadmap covering safety by design, protection of children’s data, action against AI-enabled sexual abuse material, age assurance, AI literacy and stronger evidence on how children use AI.

Against this backdrop, the Information Integrity Solutions Dialogue examined AI as part of the wider information ecosystem and how technological change is affecting trust, access to reliable information and people’s ability to participate meaningfully in public life.

Participants closed with a call for greater collaboration across sectors and regions, so that the principles underpinning information integrity can translate into measurable action ahead of COP31, the next edition of the UN climate conference, as well as the Internet Governance Forum and beyond.

Find the Chair's Summary of the event here.