Disinformation is being weaponised against all of us: UK Statement at the UN Fourth Committee
Statement by UK Spokesperson to the UN Hannah Zainuddin at the UN Fourth Committee on information integrity.
Thank you to the UN Department of Global Communications, led by Under-Secretary-General Melissa Fleming, for its work including on the UN’s Global Principles for Information Integrity, launched in June, which we are proud to support.
We are committed to implementing the UN Pact for the Future and Global Digital Compact in order to advance information integrity.
The UK is alarmed by the unprecedented rate at which threats to information integrity are growing.
Supercharged by artificial intelligence, misinformation and disinformation are both more common than ever and increasingly difficult to distinguish from the truth, allowing them to be used to deceive populations at-scale.
On climate change, for example, we thank the Department for Global Communications for its work to share accurate information about the climate and nature crisis.
Unfortunately, widespread mis- and dis-information are undermining the urgent action needed to fight this crisis.
And this is no passive process.
Disinformation is being weaponised and targeted against all of us – not just by individuals, or groups, but by Member States of this organisation.
For example, in Mali, the rise in anti-UN disinformation coincided with the arrival of mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group. This resulted in a rise in attacks against peacekeepers.
After a few years, the UN Mission in Mali became the most dangerous active peacekeeping mission in the world, and it was eventually forced to close in 2023. This is not by coincidence, but by design.
Since 2022, Russia has sponsored 80 documented disinformation campaigns in 22 African countries undermining African security.
There will never be peace if states like Russia can create and spread lies, to confect and sow conflict from afar.
And not just in Africa. In Europe too, the UK, the US and Canada recently exposed a Russian disinformation campaign designed to influence the outcome of Moldova’s presidential election and incite protests if the winner did not align with the Kremlin’s agenda.
In a year in which voters in more than 60 countries have or are taking part in national elections, such flagrant external interference in another country’s democratic process should outrage us all.
In doing so, Russia is not just attacking the people of our countries. Russia is attacking the very notion of objective truth which once lost, can never be recovered.
Because there can be no justice, without objective truth, to hold the guilty to account.
There can be no democracy, if the information people use to inform their decisions has been poisoned.
There is no freedom, without the freedom to report the truth or to access the truth.
So we cannot be complacent. We must come together, and we must act.
That’s why the UK advocates for a human rights-based approach and we will do all we can to protect the integrity of the information on which we rely.
The UK’s Online Safety Act will force companies to remove illegal online content, including illegal mis and disinformation generated by AI.
The Act’s Foreign Interference Offence will force technology companies to act against state-sponsored disinformation.
The UK is also working with the G7 to deliver a Collective Response Framework to counter foreign threats, including to expose operations of information manipulation, as we did for Moldova this year.
And the UK condemns the disinformation campaigns by Russia and its partners to stoke violence against UN peacekeeping operations, including most recently to undermine the UN’s mandate to protect the peace in the Central African Republic.
These disinformation campaigns against the UN are eroding trust between the Blue Helmets and the communities they serve. It is damaging their ability to implement their mandate, and it is putting peacekeepers’ lives at risk. This is unacceptable.
The UK is proud to support the UN’s Mis- and Disinformation in Peacekeeping Settings Project, contributing USD $242,000 this financial year.
And journalists covering conflicts must be afforded protection, in line with international humanitarian law.
Finally, we must remember that a third of the world’s population is still offline. We are proud that the UK’s Digital Access Programme has supported access to the internet for over 13.5 million people including in Nigeria, Kenya, Indonesia and Brazil. Digital technologies and AI can be harnessed for good, including to support the Sustainable Development Goals. But only if we take an inclusive approach. That’s why, from improving digital access to supporting the rich multilingualism that we hear and speak in the UN each day, the UK’s support is unwavering.