Content Governance
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the world was faced with the physical threat of vicious viruses and the digital conundrum of ‘infodemics’: falsehood abounded on social media platforms, threatening the prevailing consensus around facts and scientific findings. Nowadays, generative AI–models that produce textual, visual, and audio content based on pre-supplied data, along with digital platforms’ attention-maximising algorithms, continue to challenge the modern world with widely disseminated hate speech and mis/disinformation.
Content governance touches on many human rights subjects, including freedom of expression, the freedom of peaceful assembly and association, children’s rights, gender rights online, and the rights of persons with disabilities. Furthermore, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reports on the need to effectively prevent and counter the spread of violent extremism online and account for the rights of civil society actors and human rights defenders. ICT4Peace is dedicated to preventing the malicious use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for terrorist purposes, co-launching the Tech against Terrorism Platform with the UN Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (UNCTED). The Kofi Annan Foundation works with civil society, electoral management bodies, and the private sector to counter electoral-related disinformation and negate foreign influences in elections.
