The Committee on Information continued its annual session today, as delegates decried the epidemic of disinformation spreading around the world faster than the COVID-19 virus and tasked the United Nations with strengthening multilingual strategic communications to inoculate populations against this harmful trend.
The massive spread of misinformation and disinformation and surge of hate speech that has coalesced to undermine global public health during the COVID-19 crisis presents an “immediate test case” for the United Nations Department of Global Communications and its vision of a world thriving in peace, dignity and equality, its chief told the Committee on Information today, as delegates began their annual session.
The Committee on Information closed its annual session during a videoconference meeting today, approving two hallmark draft resolutions, one focused on core questions of press freedom and the second laying out its requests and expectations for the newly reformed Department of Global Communications.
Closing its annual session today, the Committee on Information approved two draft resolutions, the second of which also stresses that Member States should refrain from using information and communications technology in contravention of international law, including the Charter of the United Nations.
The Department of Global Communications is counting on Member States to help it accelerate the pace of modernization and improve the ways it informs the world about the work of the United Nations in an era of challenge for multilateralism, the Committee on Information heard today.
As the Committee on Information entered the second day of its forty-first session today, speakers took opposing stances on the Special Information Programme on the Question of Palestine — which the Department of Global Communications oversees — while also spotlighting the potential negative impact of fake news on international relations.
The newly named Department of Global Communications is instilling a culture of collaboration and innovation and undertaking measures to create broader public engagement needed to tackle global challenges, the Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications told the Committee on Information today as it opened its forty-first session.
Closing its fortieth session today, the Committee on Information approved two draft resolutions, the second of which emphasized the need to promote multilingualism, bridge the digital divide and maintain the use of traditional media.
Expressing concern about widening global inequality and deepening divides between peoples, speakers addressing the Committee on Information today urged the Department of Public Information to position itself as a critical resource for — and advocate of — the world’s most marginalized communities, as the 115‑member body entered the second day of its fortieth session.
The Department of Public Information was undergoing a process of “review and reform” of how it communicated United Nations values in a world where trust in major institutions was increasingly difficult to maintain, and “fake” stories competed with legitimate news for public attention, the Committee on Information heard today as it opened its fortieth session.
