World Press Freedom Day 2022 Journalism Under Siege

Democracy Watch News

Mark Taylor-Canfield reporting for www.democracywatchnews.org summarizes his online attendance at this year's United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s press freedom events hosted by UNESCO. https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/worldpressfreedomday

UNESCO is a specialized agency of the United Nations aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture.

Several goals were advanced during this event.

• Social media platforms should increase transparency about any actions to stop the spread of disinformation and to promote trustworthy information instead.

• Human rights-based governance is needed to ensure that internet companies do more to tackle disinformation, online hate speech and potentially harmful content. This must be consistent with international standards on freedom of expression, access to information and the safety of journalists.

• Privacy standards must be strengthened in regard to threats to the right to privacy by digital technologies and practices such as data retention, artificial intelligence, spyware, and arbitrary surveillance.

• Legal actions are needed to prevent and prosecute illegal surveillance of journalists, both by public and private parties, while there should be strengthened legal protection for journalists to keep their sources confidential.

• Platforms and police services must take strong steps to prevent and eliminate online attacks against journalists, orchestrated campaigns of harassment, intimidation, and violations of privacy.

• Intensified measures need to be taken to protect women journalists, who are especially violently targeted online and offline, such as by increasing responsiveness to their situation and developing tools to identify and fight online violence.

• Of immediate concern is the economic viability of media, as many outlets continue to bleed advertising revenues to Internet companies, resulting in news deserts and existential threats to media pluralism and independence.

• Member States, Internet intermediaries and civil society all have a role to play to break the digital siege on journalism, and to find multistakeholder solutions to the challenges.

Introductory message from Tawfik Jelassi, UNESCO. https://youtu.be/vBjDIm_Q0rg

World Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders. https://rsf.org/en/index

Recorded 2022-05-19 Duration 05:32

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