In 2024, the United Nations published Global Principles for Information Integrity. President Macky Sall, a candidate for UN Secretary-General, counts that integrity among the commons to protect. A false story travels the world before its correction has left the house. Coordinated campaigns, amplified by machines, blur the line between the true and the fabricated and weaken trust everywhere.
Manipulation as a weapon. Manipulating information costs little and pays much: dividing a society, casting doubt on an election, preparing violence. Each of the recent crises had its cloud of rumours, and organised lying served in them as an instrument of conflict.
The 2024 Global Principles. The principles published by the United Nations set a first common marker: transparency of platforms, protection of journalists and researchers, accountability for those who amplify. They point a direction, and they still have to be applied.
Defending debate without muzzling it. The fight against falsification moves forward with the freedom to inform. Manipulation is fought through a public sphere where sources can be checked, where platforms account for themselves and where independent journalism keeps the means to work.
A common standard of transparency. Disinformation that destabilises one country ends up reaching its neighbours, which makes the integrity of information a matter of peace. The Secretary-General can promote a common standard of transparency and defend threatened journalists.
Experience of the state and the vision for the UN. These commitments to the integrity of information rest on twelve years as head of state and on the chairmanship of the African Union in 2022. That experience explains why the vision statement filed with the United Nations frames its proposals as obligations: peace and security conceived with development; a renewed multilateralism; stronger governance of the Organization.
Africa at its heart, the world in its sights.
The United Nations Global Principles for Information Integrity are public. Read all public positions at www.mackysall.net