PARIS (AP) 鈥 The United Nations鈥 educational, scientific and cultural agency chief on Wednesday called for a global dialogue to find ways to regulate social media companies and limit their role in the spreading of misinformation around the world.
Audrey Azoulay, the director general of UNESCO, addressed a gathering of lawmakers, journalists and civil societies from around the world to discuss ways to regulate social media platforms such as Twitter and others to help make the internet a safer, fact-based space.
The two-day conference in Paris aims to formulate guidelines that would help regulators, governments and businesses manage content that undermines democracy and human rights, while supporting freedom of expression and promoting access to accurate and reliable information.
The global dialogue should provide the legal tools and principles of accountability and responsibility for social media companies to contribute to the 鈥減ublic good,鈥 Azoulay said in an interview with The Associated Press on the sidelines of the conference. She added: 鈥淚t would limit the risks that we see today, that we live today, disinformation (and) conspiracy theories spreading faster than the truth.鈥
The that will compel big tech companies like Google and Facebook parent Meta to police their platforms more strictly to protect European users from hate speech, disinformation and harmful content.
The Digital Services Act is one of the EU's three significant laws targeting the tech industry.
In the United States, the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have filed major antitrust actions against Google and Facebook, although Congress remains politically divided on efforts to address online disinformation, competition, privacy and more.
Filipino journalist and told participants in the Paris conference that putting laws into place that would prevent social media companies from 鈥減roliferating misinformation on their platforms鈥 is long overdue.
platforms that she said have put 鈥渄emocracy at risk鈥 and distracted societies from solving problems such climate change and the rise of authoritarianism around the world.
By 鈥渋nsidiously manipulating people at the scale that鈥檚 happening now, ... (they have) changed our values and it has rippled to cascading failure,鈥 Ressa told the AP in an interview on Wednesday.
鈥淚f you don鈥檛 have a set of shared facts, how do we deal with climate change?鈥 Ressa said. 鈥淚f everything is debatable, if trust is destroyed (there鈥檚 no) meaningful exchange.鈥
She added: 鈥淛ust a reminder, democracy is not just about talking. It鈥檚 about listening. It鈥檚 about finding compromises that are impossible in the world of technology today.鈥
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Nicholas Garriga in Paris contributed
