The UN Global Principles for Information Integrity, released in July, aim to create a healthier information ecosystem, seen an as important component of democratic societies. While ARTICLE 19 understands the intention behind the Principles, we are concerned about several aspects of the document that could undermine freedom of expression. While the Principles promote societal trust and pluralism, they fail to adequately address the misuse of ‘disinformation’ laws to suppress dissent and critical journalism, leaving the door open for vague and overbroad regulations. Additionally, the Principles acknowledge the monopolistic nature of digital platforms but lack concrete recommendations to dismantle their market dominance, which exacerbates challenges to information integrity. The absence of clear mechanisms for monitoring implementation raises concerns about potential misuse and the effectiveness of these principles in safeguarding democratic values. ARTICLE 19 calls for a more robust framework that prioritises freedom of expression and ensures accountability in the application of these Principles. We also call on states to use the momentum of the forthcoming Summit of the Future to advocate for specific freedom-of-expression-compliant recommendations for information integrity and secure concrete commitments from relevant actors, including digital platforms.
Following consultations with various stakeholders, the United Nations released The Global Principles for Information Integrity: Recommendations for Multi-stakeholder Action (Global Principles) in July 2024. The declared aim of the Principles is to offer ‘a holistic framework to guide multi-stakeholder action for a healthier information ecosystem’.
ARTICLE 19 took part in the UN consultations on the Global Principles, originally titled Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on Digital Platforms.
Positive aspects of the Global Principles
We welcome the fact that those who drafted the Principles incorporated a number of our recommendations into the final version. In particular, it is encouraging to see the departure from the initial draft, where ‘all stakeholders’ were urged to refrain from certain types of speech altogether, including speech that is firmly protected under international law, even though some speech may ‘offend’, ‘insult’ or ‘shock’ certain individuals or be factually questionable.
We also appreciate that more robust recommendations to digital platforms on free-speech-centred approaches to content curation and content moderation were added, as well as acknowledging the issue of the current monopolised business models that have adverse effects on users’ digital rights. Specific recommendations relating to more consistent, transparent, human-rights-compliant and localised recommender systems and content moderation were added.
Remaining concerns about the Global Principles
At the same time, ARTICLE 19 observes that several of the points that prompted our concerns, raised during the consultations, remain in the final text.
First, we find that the structure of the document confusing. Its narrative section is grouped around five thematic principles: societal trust and resilience; independent, free and pluralistic media; transparency and research; public empowerment; and healthy incentives. The document then provides sets of recommendations to various stakeholders: technology companies, artificial intelligence companies, providers and creators, advertisers, other private actors, news media, researchers and civil society, States, and the UN— with limited guidance as to further monitoring and implementation.
Second, we believe that several important safeguards have been left out of the Global Principles. These include:
- The failure to acknowledge and address restrictions of the right to freedom of expression under the guise of protecting information integrity;
- The absence of concrete recommendations on addressing the current market dominance of digital platform companies, despite the acknowledgement of the issue in the narrative part of the Principles;
- The lack of clear explanation of the implementation mechanisms and more actionable next steps.
Restrictions on freedom of expression under the guise of protecting information integrity
ARTICLE 19 finds that a major gap in the Guiding Principles is the lack of acknowledgement of the issue of instrumentalising the fight against ‘disinformation’, ‘hate speech’, or other broad categories of ‘problematic’ speech to stifle journalism, political opposition and criticism of government, and to generally suppress alternative viewpoints.
The past decade has seen a proliferation of ‘disinformation’ laws, including criminal legislation, that has enabled governments to control speech online and police ‘fake news’. In Russia, the dissemination of ‘false’ and ‘discrediting’ information has been harshly penalised, particularly since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which essentially erased any possibility to criticise the invasion, as well as use of the word ‘war’ when referring to it, and led to the jailing of the few remaining opposition figures in the country. Türkiye’s ‘disinformation offence’ has been weaponised to stifle dissent and has resulted in dozens of criminal cases against journalists. In Senegal, ‘false news’ laws, coupled with criminal defamation and insult provisions, have turned into a censorship measure, chilling and impeding the work of independent media. Many more vague and overbroad ‘disinformation laws’ with disproportionate restrictions have already been passed worldwide, or have emerged in the form of legislative proposals, threatening free expression, impeding journalism, and narrowing civic space.
The Global Principles mention in passing the need to ensure proportionality when responding to challenges to information integrity, both in terms of responses implemented by companies and by States. However, the Principles do not caution against manifestly disproportionate responses, for example, overbroad criminal laws that penalise ‘disinformation’. Likewise, the Global Principles do not acknowledge the risk of creating a duty of truth or other generic State-enforced veracity standards, which would always have devastating effects on freedoms of expression and information.
ARTICLE 19 recalls that no information should be censored or restricted simply based on a State-enforced understanding of its ‘truthfulness’ or ‘accuracy’. Due to the inherent vagueness of such notions as ‘disinformation’, ‘misinformation’, or ‘false news’, and the absence of these terms in human rights treaties, it is questionable whether it is in principle possible to create ‘disinformation’ regulations with a sufficient degree of precision that would meet the requirements of legal certainty.
We are concerned that any attempts to define disinformation or capture the complexities of this concept in one catch-all definition will remain inherently ambiguous and vague and will risk overbroad and subjective interpretations. Government bodies, public officials, and the police should not be given a blank cheque to determine what is ‘true’ or ‘false’, as this power is inherently a type of censorship. Furthermore, even if a perfect definition of ‘disinformation’ is conceivable, the verifiable falsity or even the deliberately misleading nature of information does not in itself satisfy the test of legitimacy, as the interest of ‘truthfulness’ does not per se fall under any recognised legitimate aim under the tripartite test for free speech restrictions.
Failure to address the current market dominance of a few digital platform companies
As we highlighted during the consultation to the Guiding Principles, the business model of digital companies, in particular social media platforms, is not neutral or enabling for pluralism of viewpoints. It monetises users’ attention, including by prioritising ‘viral’ information or ideas, often sensationalist and provocative, that may well contain problematic speech and pose a challenge to information integrity. Users are exposed to a particular subset of views and information that is designed to keep them online and engaged longer. There are currently no incentives for digital platforms to curate, organise, promote and moderate content that would be conducive to exposing the user to a diversity of opinions and pluralistic sources of information. The current business model thrives due to the irregular market situation: the dominant position occupied by a handful of companies, which are not challenged by competition.
The Global Principles acknowledge the problems emanating from the current business model of digital platform companies. There have also been some granular changes to the recommendations on content curation, moderation and giving the user greater control over content. However, there remain no concrete recommendations on addressing the root cause – the market dominance of a limited number of companies.
ARTICLE 19 recommends comprehensive application of competition law towards the unbundling of content hosting from content curation and moderation. It is hardly disputable that ‘information threats’ are as effective in achieving their malicious goals as they are able to reach audiences through digital means. Social media companies, in particular, have become the gatekeepers of users’ human rights. Their business decisions, enabled by their market power, have direct effect on the exercise of the rights to freedom of expression and information and the right to privacy. Addressing the market failures in digital spaces, conducted with due regard to human rights principles, is potentially the most far-reaching intervention towards achieving greater information integrity online.
Lack of clear implementation mechanisms and more actionable next steps
The implementation of the Global Principles is the most crucial phase. ARTICLE 19 believes that the Global Principles should not be treated as a completed deed, but that their future implementation and possible misuse should be subject to monitoring and other forms of the UN involvement. It was encouraging to see next steps outlined in the document, with a description of planned actions to be undertaken by the UN. However, there are no clear mechanisms of oversight of compliance with the recommendations or implementation detailed in the Principles.
The proliferation of soft law instruments on information integrity, despite the good intentions of their authors, presents unnecessary challenges to complementarity with existing international and regional human rights standards and undermines their actionability. Although a collaborative approach to implementation is stressed in the document, it remains unclear how exactly the UN system will support multi-stakeholder action plans and what fora are envisaged for that purpose.
ARTICLE 19 is generally cautions against issuing guidelines – even though they may be well-intentioned – that can have adverse effects on the exercise of the right to freedom of expression. A risk assessment of States’ and other actors’ possible misuse of the Global Principles to advance restrictive policies and limit free expression is essential and must be integrated into the implementation process.
What’s next
ARTICLE 19 hopes that the upcoming Summit of the Future will be an opportunity for all stakeholders to further advocate for specific freedom-of-expression-compliant recommendations on information integrity and secure concrete commitments from relevant actors, including digital platforms. Ultimately, the Summit of the Future is crucial for securing commitments from stakeholders to create a more rights-respecting framework that promotes information integrity while protecting the fundamental right to free expression in the digital age.