UN This Week: Jan 29- Feb 1
Delivering a statement at the UN on behalf of C-Fam about the dangers of technology-facilitated “anti-misinformation” campaigns
UN General Assembly
On Monday, the UN Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian Committee offered civil society organizations the chance to come before the committee and deliver statements. C-Fam, one of the few conservative civil society organizations at the UN, took the floor to warn against the dangers of using “misinformation” as an excuse to silence conservative speech.
You can find the full statement below.
“We appreciate the many delegations that took a stand for life and family in the 78th session, including by dissociating from controversial language and putting it to a vote, thus, faithfully representing the pro-life and pro-family views of their people. UN policy should be truly representative and should not seek to usurp democratic debate on controversial issues.
It has been our experience that Member States are open to partnering with civil society organizations and are receptive to our assistance. However, we are worried that formalized civil society participation is sometimes used to silence certain viewpoints and emphasize others.
We have witnessed a real danger of totalitarian tendencies in the name of “human rights”. Including to silence pro-life and pro-family voices on pretextual grounds that they are “dangerous” and “anti-rights” simply for holding traditional or religious views. This is not a speculation; it is already happening now.
Given this year’s thematic focus, “the impact of new and emerging technologies on issues under consideration by the Third Committee,” our organization is worried about the ways in which technology can become a political weapon. If we truly believe in a Declaration of Human rights that applies to all, those who wield the control of AI cannot be allowed to silence, repress, or cancel conservatives views.
In the wrong hands, AI technologies can become social control tools that silence entire populations and viewpoints. It can re-write history and make up facts. AI tools already spew billions of words every day without any attribution at all. And they have already been caught mis-citing and manufacturing sources to obtain favored results due to political bias in their programming.
Many international agencies are pushing for the censorship of misinformation and disinformation through the help of technology, but these are powerful labels that are difficult to define. For example, progressive groups often use the word “misinformation” to describe conservative speech, not necessarily false speech. At the World Economic Forum, some Leaders already praised their collaboration with all the big tech to push against disinformation so people will get the “right” facts.
This sounds truly Orwellian.
At a time where the UN is trying to “rebuild” trust, we hope that the UN will treat these issues with more caution and ensure that emerging technologies will not undermine differences in cultures and opinions by imposing a single understanding of what is good.
I thank you.”
UN Cybercrime Convention
UN Member States are negotiating a Convention on preventing and combating cybercrime. Among the many topics it covers, there are some provisions that have to do with criminalization of production, distribution, and accessing sexually explicit online material involving children.
The existence and circulation of such material is truly stomach-turning and we should do everything in our power to protect child innocence from grooming and the sexual perversion that is so prevalent in today’s world. Children are particularly vulnerable to online traps and perverts- they do not have enough life experience to anticipate the evil that is out there on the internet.
See some excerpts from the Convention below.
Not to be a hater but something less than ideal that caught my [non-legal expert] eye was that initially, the text read:
“Each State Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offenses under its domestic law the act of intentionally communicating, soliciting, or making any arrangement through [a computer system] [an information and communications technology device] for sexual purposes against a child, as defined in domestic law, including for the commission of any of the offenses established in accordance with article 13.”
However, as of now, the draft replaced “for sexual purposes” with “for purpose of committing a sexual offense.” See below:
“Each State Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offenses under its domestic law the act of intentionally communicating, soliciting, or making any arrangement through [a computer system] [an information and communications technology device] for purpose of committing a sexual offense against a child, as defined in domestic law, including for the commission of any of the offenses established in accordance with article 13.”
