UN General Assembly
2023

Ensuring that human rights are the foundation of an open, safe digital future will not be an easy task. In that regard. I am looking at a key menace of our time — disinformation. Unfortunately, our time is once again one of competing narratives, except that now the threat they pose to humankind is much more complex. We are in an era of snack news, an attention economy, the fabrication of facts and increasing disagreements about facts precisely because we no longer trust any narrative. We may have freedom of information, but we are not protected against false information, manipulation and deceit. The Secretary-General was on point when he referred to the proliferation of hate and lies in the digital space as grave global harm. Big tech companies should take more systematic responsibility for the content they host and moderate. They should better protect users from hate speech, disinformation and other harmful online content. What is unacceptable offline should not be acceptable online.