ASEAN supports the United Nations to prevent fake news and disinformation

On 5/11, at the United Nations headquarters in New York, the Committee on Special Political Problems and Decolonization (4 Committee) of the United Nations General Assembly of the 79 session held its 10th Plenary Session 17 to discuss the topic "Information issues."

According to VNA correspondent in New York, at the meeting, the UN Deputy Secretary-General in charge of Global Information emphasized world are facing many challenges in information and communication, especially the state of information interference about armed conflicts and development issues, including climate change and rising sea levels. Most representatives of countries reaffirmed the importance of ensuring the integrity of information in the face of increasingly widespread fake news and disinformation, especially in cyberspace.

Speaking on behalf of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the meeting, Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang - Head of the Permanent Mission of Vietnam to the United Nations, affirmed ASEAN's support for the role of the United Nations in maintaining principles of information integrity and addressing the increasingly serious spread of misinformation globally.

ASEAN believes that the United Nations should place information and public communication at the centre of strategic management, while ensuring the provision of clear, timely, well-founded, accurate, reliable, comprehensive, objective and fair information with the highest level of transparency.

Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang emphasized that in the context of rapidly changing global media, the Global Media Department and the United Nations Information Commission need to further promote their roles in preventing misinformation, hate speech and incitement to violence, and at the same time take advantage of digital technology to promote media serving the Sustainable Development Goals.

In the face of increasing cybercrime and malicious attacks on critical information infrastructure, ASEAN representatives stressed the urgency of enhancing the resilience of the technological infrastructure of the United Nations and countries.

For its part, ASEAN affirmed its determination to unite in building an advanced, secure, people-centered information and communications ecosystem with ASEAN identity through the implementation of relevant strategies and action plans, including the Declaration. Da Nang on communication (2023).

Last July, the United Nations issued the “Global Principles on Information Integrity,” which identified five core elements of a healthy information ecosystem: social trust and resilience; healthy information engines; public empowerment; independent, free and inclusive media; transparency and research./.