The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> JULIA HAAS: Good morning, and welcome to our session. For all of you who are wondering how to use the headset, please turn on channel 5. We're in workshop room 5, so that's the indication that you need to press channel 5, or you will be spying on our neighbours' conversations.
Thank you for joining us in this early morning hour after, I think, several receptions last night. We appreciate you being here for this, what at least all of us here think will be an important conversation.
If you want to join the head table, feel free to do so. Also, from the audience, you will be invited to contribute.
Maybe I should start with saying this session is called Information Integrity Through Journalism & Alternative Platforms. My name is Julia Haas, Advisor, OSCE, Intergovernmental Organization.
We bring in a lot of components and organise it together with IMS and together with NIC Brazil and a lot of different components that comes to show that the topic of information integrity and the broader issues linked to it can really be approached from vast different perspectives and showing that it's an umbrella topic, and there are different angles that we try to combine in this conversation today to really look at what information integrity means, what role journalism plays in that, whether and how big tech is undermining and how we can overcome this undermining with integrate and platforms and what we can do about it.
So I think the starting point for the conversation that we are having today is really this dominance and this power concentration that was very highly discussed throughout the first day of the IGF, yesterday, where there was almost this basic understanding that we cannot have information integrity in the way that our information ecosystem and the digital part of it is organised and structured.
And then there are different ways of approaching it, different angles, and today, we will try to bring it together to really say or see what concretely could be done and also what roles states can play in this regard.
So I'm very happy to have a very multistakeholder panel, also, to bring in these different components to see what individuals, what civil society, what the media, what also the government, very importantly, and also international organisations and media development organisations can do.
So I will just very, very briefly introduce the speakers, once they take the floor.
But, again, I will let you know it's interactive so feel free to contribute if you have an interesting angle or experience to share. This will be very useful.
With that, I would like to hand over for another round of introductory opening remarks to Anne Marie Engtoft Melgaard, Denmark's Tech Ambassador, WEOG. Thank you very much. The floor is yours.
>> ANNE MARIE ENGTOFT MELGAARD: Thank you so much. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. I hope you can all hear me.
I am delighted to be ‑‑ this is my first IGF workshop this year, this round. I think there's not a more important topic to start out than on this topic of information integrity.
When you look at numbers, it's not that great. It's never been more dangerous to be a journalist around the world.
It's never been more dire for news and media to make its way through the noise of what has also become the Internet for many of us.
I've been to IGF, and NETmundial, a lot of these gatherings to discuss the integrity environment.
The role of Big Tech, we discussed this close to a decade now. The conversation on fragmentation and a media scape that fragments into our democracy.
The background of what we are discussing and meeting is incredibly dim and dark, and many are facing real‑life challenges.
This is not a democracy of voting. It's something we exercise on a daily basis. We do it in an information environment that's sound and healthy and sprawling and allows for creativity and democratic debate.
So the system is under pressure, but one thing that does make me somewhat hopeful and optimistic is we see more and more individuals trying to break free of what has occurred in the environment.
So while I hope that today will have a discussion that we continue on what to do around these topics and how things creep into the very institutions of democracy, what is it with the business models that are still not serving public interest when it comes to information integrity.
What are the opposite side of that? Who are the individuals finding different ways and using different platforms?
I am delighted to see the number of new platforms that are taking that quest of saying we don't have to use only big two, three, four platforms. We can make our own ones.
When I meet young people and I lament that they don't read newspapers, but they say, I follow TikTok. There's individuals that I have no clue who they are, but they have 50,000 followers, and they give good news than the slightly boring articling that I prefer to read.
Denmark, this is something we have been following. We launched ‑‑ in collaboration with the Netherlands last year. We've been to various gatherings with so many of you. We believe it's pushing trust, agency, and diversity. Trust, agency, and diversity, this really has to be a root course of how we think about information integrity.
I hope that we can have a conversation today on how do we do that, and how do we ensure that there's greater platform accountability and accountability in this community. How do we keep ourselves up to the standards so when we meet five years from now, we have actually moved the needle on information integrity.
We see that power is concentrated with Big Tech ‑‑ and I will finish in just a second ‑‑ and the governments who regulate these things.
IGF is really dependent on the multistakeholder model.
So use that in today's discussion in telling the Big Tech or governments and myself about what we need to do to get it right and advance this information integrity that is really about a space online where we like to be and can exercise our democratic rights.
>> JULIA HAAS: Thank you, Ambassador, for the strong words. I think the keywords you mentioned about trust and diversity is going to frame things today.
Another important thing you said is democracy is really about this process. It's about every day. Elections are a peak, but it's about being able to be informed, and, in the end, what we're talking about is pluralism, which is what democracy is about and being able to have these different angles and different platforms and different opportunities to express oneself and express information and all of that.
So I just want to very briefly tell you a few sentences on the approach that the OSCE is taking. As you might be aware, the OSCE is a security organisation and really understanding human rights is an essential component of security.
There we have our representative of the freedom of media, and we're about to finalise policy recommendations to states that were developed over the course of the last almost one year now in a set of roundtables and consultations to try to bring together different experts, different perspectives, and experiences to try to identify not only what the key challenges are in information space, particularly from the perspective of journalism and independent media but really to say how to take it further. What are the different angles? The way we approach is it look at three different approaches, what we see as being important on agency and pluralism and things you have been mentioning.
One of them is the question of financial survival. So really the question of media viability because if we think about accessibility of public information, of course, we have to make sure that individuals and societies are able to produce such quality information.
So one of the aspects we are approaching is as to look at what measures are needed and how states can support an environment where media is sustainable in this ecosystem of power concentration. So how to make sure that those who distribute and benefit financially from journalism pay the journalists. So there's a lot of experience that many of you will be aware of regarding renumeration and things that are coming more and more into discussion.
The second is to make sure journalism is available to they are able to exist and continue to work. Then it's also a question of how to make it visible. We all know in the current information space, it's not only about high‑quality public interest piece being out there. It's out there. It's about how to get the attention. The business model you have been referring to is about this attention and way more the visibility than it being available at some point.
So the second aspect we've been looking at is really how to make sure that there's due prominence to journalism and quality information and what approaches states could take to mend visibility without risking, on the one hand, the power of the actors that distribute the content but also without the risk of capture and political pressure from governmental side or from captured regulatory bodies.
Then the third aspect that we kind of see as interlinked but equally important is the aspect of safety. If we want quality journalism available online, the journalists need to be safe to navigate in these spaces. So we'll be providing a lot of recommendations on how the safety of journalists can be better realised in the digital spaces.
Something that really became clear in all these discussions is while we need some of this urgent mitigation measures almost in this current ecosystem that we are in, there's also an increasing recognition from the entire community, the media community, the Internet community, the information integrity community, all of that, that we are almost at a point this time where we really have to move beyond this kind of like fixing here and there the ecosystem, but we have to be stronger and better in imagining how do we see a healthy information space.
This is also a word you have been using to really see how can we create a space where everybody is able to have trust, agency, and diversity, to go back to these keywords.
It's really great that today we'll be able to hear about a few initiatives from both sides, right? How to be able to rein in on this power and information space and go the extra mile to create alternatives and have ideas of reclaiming this space that is supposed to belong to everybody to be able to have informed people, informed societies, and, therefore, be able to have democracy and security in the end.
So this will be published ‑‑ just a short teaser ‑‑ in September. I'm happy to share it with everybody. It will also be published online. So just to give you a little bit of the background, also, where the OSCE is coming from, and we are also very happy to bring together with the partner this is conversation today.
And now I would like to bring in also the perspective of one specific country because an idea of today was also to really bring in the international component, all these different multistakeholder initiatives such as the IGF and also really go to the regional level, to the local level, almost to see what has been tried, what lessons can we draw for this international conversation and for this multistakeholder corporation.
So I want to hand over to ‑‑ I apologise. I didn't prepare properly on the names.
The special advisor for the Ministry of Science and Technology.
It will be interesting, if you can build on this strong introduction we heard and what is the experience ‑‑ like, how does the Brazil side look at information integrity? Why do you think it's important from the positive framing instead of just speaking about disinformation, as we did a few years ago and also considering this Big Tech power Brazil has intervened and tried to take concrete steps.
If you could share from your side, it would be very much appreciated.
>> Thank you. I have the responsibility of replacing my colleague, João Brant, in this workshop.
He has led in our government. I will briefly present the perspective of our government and some initiatives regarding ‑‑ oh, my god ‑‑ much better ‑‑ (laughter) ‑‑ it's weird.
First, I want to emphasise that we live in a time where the very foundation of our public information environment is under threat. The existence of shared framework guided by trust, credibility, public interest, and professionalism is being seriously challenged.
Yet, such a framework is essential for building and sustaining democratic societies, as Anne Marie said. It's the very foundation of our democracies.
The erosion, mainly driving by the power of Big Tech companies, which control the flow of information in our society with unprecedented influence, are clear and serious.
What we're experiencing in Brazil in January 2023, interference in political processes, the rise of hate speech targeting vulnerable groups and their increasing exposure of children to harmful content.
Tackling this problem is a strategic priority. That is why Brazil considers information integrity a central pillar of both democracy and human rights.
This view is in alignment with multilateral organisations.
Let me highlight two important references, the United Nations Global Principles For Information Integrity in the Global Digital Compact, which calls for ‑‑ in digital spaces, rounded in values like truth, diversity, inclusion, and accountable. Of course, and agency, as said.
Last year, information integrity was included for the first time in the Digital Economy Working Group. These were milestones and a clear sign of growing international commitment to shaping healthier ecosystems.
From Brazil's perspective, it is essential that countries work to foster diverse in digital environments and create ‑‑ in the business models of major platforms.
To that end, Brazil has taken important steps with initiatives that were under way with the government, national Congress, promoted media and digital ‑‑ for us, this is very strategic because without ‑‑ people cannot defend themselves from this information.
Strengthening the debate and presenting proposals with due diligence for platforms and support media and develop frameworks for accountability in digital spaces.
But we've been addressing this issue through the judiciary, notably, our Supreme Court and notably with the blocking of X with non‑compliance of Brazilian court orders and debate on liability of digital platforms.
One issue that deserves special attention is the impact of generative artificial intelligence ‑‑ contained by AI systems. The current model shows the ‑‑ of journal and affects our entire ecosystem.
In response, the artificial intelligence view ‑‑ Senate and now in the discussion in the Chamber of Deputies provides fair compensation when materials are used to train AI systems.
But we are aware that national measures alone are not enough. Turning principles into actions require coordinated stakeholder efforts. It requires to address transparency to ensure fast, coordinated responses to this information contains.
In particular, we are regulating ecosystems requires international corporations to strike the right balance between freedom of expression and accountability.
Brazil is proud to have contributed to this agenda in partnership with the UN and UNESCO through the launch of global ‑‑ on climate change, which is the topic of the workshop today at 3:30 p.m.
But just to point here, the initiative works to structure around four main pillars, integrity information on climate change, international agendas, promoting globalisation by inviting diverse sectors to share truth, knowledge, and resources that support information integrity.
Three, financing projects aimed at strengthening information related to climate change and analysing the integrate on climate change by developing public policies on the issues.
We invite ‑‑ to join in the efforts. Let us share in collective action and the multistakeholder mobilisation being led by the presidency. Information integrity is a shared responsibility.
Together, we can build public trust, protect democratic dialogue, and ensure accurate information serves as a solid foundation to address the climate change of our time.
Thank you very much.
>> JULIA HAAS: Thank you so much for this broad overview. I think you brought perspective and shown that there's a lot of initiatives out there.
The key at least for me, it's great to see that Brazil is at the forefront, but the national action alone is necessary but not sufficient in and of itself. So it's important to say how to inspire this collective action that you referred to.
It will be interesting to explore what you referred to and the document and the global principles by the UN and the ‑‑ can really be operationalised and how they can inspire governments to takes action for this, to linking back to the shared reality, which is also something very often referred to in the Nobel Peace Prize. Without, this we're not able to share, this and it's the basis of democracy.
Thank you for outlining how the Brazilian approach is to rebalance this power and focus more on information integrity.
There's a few things I would like to ask our next speaker, Beatriz Barbosa, Journalist, Coalition for Rights on the Net, Civil Society, GRULAC, to speak on.
You brought up Generative AI, which is important to look forward and address the same issues that we've been speaking for many years now that are, unfortunately, still not solved but bring in new developments and it wills that accelerate and exacerbate many of the challenges that we're talk about and then the remuneration that you referred to.
Also, the essential role of pluralism for information integrity is something that was mentioned by both of our speakers already and also how this information integrity can be linked to platform governance and platform regulation, I think, is a very important angle to explore.
So, Bea, can you talk about the committee and the approaches you're taking, I think this would help to take the conversation further.
Thank you so much.
>> BEATRIZ BARBOSA: Thank you, Julia.
Good morning, everyone. It's nice to be here with you all.
Thank you, NIC and CGI for bringing us here.
We're a space made up of representatives from government‑business sector and civil society, where I come from. We're responsible for developing guidelines for the use in Brazil.
I would like the share with you some reflections that we've made in the committee regarding this topic.
I would like to start by reaffirming the importance of diverse ecosystem to ensure the integrity of online information. We need journalism. We need media outlets. We need initiatives to fight against disinformation online but only to be able to promote a more diverse public debate on this new public sphere.
As mentioned before, large digital platforms, including artificial intelligence, a system for ‑‑ and content recommendation have revolutionalised the way we digest and consume information. Unfortunately, today is a technical and political institution decisions from the companies that determine what information we have access to through hyperpersonalisation of content.
Specifically two companies, Google and Meta, hold a position in news and information globally. Daily, 5 billion people access information through their platforms and services.
The media's heavy reliance affects journalism. This can lead to a fragmented landscape, exacerbating political polarisation and hindering ‑‑ with public discourse.
Users don't know what journalistic information has been excluded or to which they have been exposed.
The Brazilian Steering Committees to format late guidelines has ‑‑ for one of this regulation. We have an open consultation on that. According to this one, regulation should act to protect the right to information and promote consistency and ‑‑ information systems.
In addition to that, to maintain a healthy and safe ecosystem, quality information, journalistic information, scientific contentious and policies for preserving memory and combatting fraud and misinformation should be promoted to regulation. In other words, in a scenario where social media are the main sources of traffic for online sites, according to for about two‑thirds of their global reach, social media content systems should extend reliable sources of information.
This can be done, for example, through self‑regulatory standards such as the journalistic initiatives ‑‑ as reporters without borders and adopted by 2,000 media outlets worldwide.
But producing ‑‑ content is expensive, and the growing role between the media and their audience has led to a significant loss of advertisement revenue for media outlets. These resources are reaching platforms and being used by AI companies to train their models without taking into account the rights of content and the copyrights content and the rights from creators and journalists.
In Brazil, there are currently three models under discussion on how the compensate journalism for the loss of advertisers in the platform market by ‑‑ these companies and caused by business models that are for‑profit rather than face public debate.
First one, mentioned by Julia, deals with (?) Journalist initiatives. So the use in platforms news aggregators would generate payments for links used in these systems. This is the model currently under discussion in the artificial intelligence regulation that was mentioned at the Brazilian Parliament.
The second model is the same one implemented in countries such as Australia and Canada, which provide compensation to media outlets to bargaining agreements. This is considering legislative initiatives discussed in the Congress but has not yet been approved.
Finally, the third model under discussion that provides ‑‑ that is based on taxation of platforms, based on their annual income or advertising revenue to allocate to resources to a public fund to promote journalists which should contribute to the sustainability of regions considered news deserts or with low information pluralism.
One thing identified is concept to analysing journalism content, but what is journalism and what is not journalism and who should be ‑‑ the journalists or the media outlets.
Who should pay and for what? That is, what should be remunerated? Small excerpts or journalist content? Should entertainment journalism be include not rules or not?
These are issues that require further study, but they need to be urgently considered by public authorities, decision‑makers and legislators. If you don't want things to be weakened under the enormous powers of these digital giants and reliable information will be lost forever in clicks and search for engagement.
Thank you for these five minutes. I hope you can join the conversations afterwards.
>> JULIA HAAS: Thank you so much, Bea. I think your last sentence was very powerful, in saying that it's not being lost like the journalism. I think it's important to speak about how important it is to speak about what we see and almost the negative framing around there's so much disinformation, but it's almost about what we don't see and what we want to see and how to make sure credible information, reliability information, the information that's needed for democracy is available and accessible in the digital space and also that we have this shared view on it, some of the aspects that you mentioned, like the fragmentation and hyperpersonalisation, of course, only increases with Generative AI. So it's really important to turn back on the role, the central role that journalism plays for information integrity with this positive framing.
And thank you, also, if outlining also the initiatives and different regulatory approaches to ensuring that journalists and their work is not being exploited by digital giants, how you referred to them, and that they make more profit while really draining out the journalistic work.
With these examples, obviously, you already referred to a lot of other initiatives and regulatory approaches, it would be interesting to link it back to this international discussions, international initiatives.
Again, we already heard about the digital ‑‑ Global Digital Compact. We know that there are a lot of different initiatives out there, like the WSIS+20. There are a lot of things. So it would be useful for the conversation.
I would like to ask your next speaker, Jan Lublinski, Head of Policy and Learning, Deutsch Welle Akademie, Civil Society, WEOG, to help us to kind of link this together. Right?
We now heard journalism is essential for information integrity. We have the big players out there. We have a lot of initiatives. So where do you see the need and what can we do to foster media freedom to safeguard it in this information integrity conversation and to also bring into perspective of the Deutsch Welle Akademie. That would be great.
>> JAN LUBLINSKI: Thank you, Julia. I've been impressed with what we've heard so far. It's a wealth of information. I'm trying to get it together. For me, it's a quite exciting moment because in the past, at the IGF, we've struggled to get the journalism topics on the agenda.
It's happening.
I worked 20 years as a reporter. It's exciting to see.
Now I work with ‑‑ to support and develop media, independent and reliable media.
For me, it's not about saving media houses, per se. It's about saving the function of journalism. It's about understanding the world where we are through information. That's the first function.
The second function is holding power to account. Who else does it other than journalists.
And then dialogue in society. We want to be enabled in this new world that we're in.
Anne Marie really pointed out the problems. I think it's important to talk about the problems and what we can do.
That's my first answer, Julia. We need a focused, outcome‑oriented work. If we all travelled to Oslo, I think we should each know why we're here and what we're targeting and what we want to achieve. That's the first thing.
But I would like to add to the problems that Anne Marie outlined. The development monies is, at the moment, severely cut, not only by the U.S. Government ‑‑ as you know, 268 million of annual spending was cut, which was a large portion of international development aid for media. But also other countries withdraw, which is a major problem.
It's also the threat to journalists and human rights defenders when authoritarian teams take over. Suddenly, we have information desert, but it's not dying out. It's the flooding of information ‑‑ and this is what, I think, we're up against.
So for me, I would like to highlight three aspects. I will go through each of them. The first is we need international frameworks. The second is we need to conduct fast and applied research in order to guide our strategies. And the third is we need to strengthen partnerships for media viability and this web of good, quality information.
So let me talk about the first ‑‑ the international frameworks. For me, there are a number of frameworks that are of importance. The Media Freedom Coalition, the thing that UNESCO does. But what you should be aware of is the WSIS+20. You know, the document is full review since last Friday.
For me, the thing that's important about the WSIS+20, first, make sure basic human rights are corrected. In C9, I think you should strengthen this with your partners.
Second is, of course, the multistakeholder model is key. It's not about states talking to each other. It's about everybody being involved. It's inclusive, human rights‑based, human‑centric that we want to advance in the future.
And accountability is something that the WSIS+20 review should be insisting on. If you ask me. So that's the first point.
The results Julia highlighted is extraordinary. I'm looking forward to reading the full report. It contains a lot from the people she interviewed and the roundtables. We can learn a lot. I think we need those kind of steadies.
The State of Media Development report has just been published. It's an overview of where development is at the moment. Can I talk about it more later if you ask me to, and I will have a couple of copies if you want to know where media development is going and what are the problems that we need to tackle.
And my third and last point is the media viability manifesto initiative, which is an example for grassroots experts coming together for over 20 media development organisations and really trying to say what can we do about media viability.
And, of course, there's no silver bullet in saving journalism and quality information, but there is now, thanks to this initiative, a common language. So we have definitions of what we talk about when we talk about sustainability. We have an agenda. We know how to move forward.
We align practical implementation in the future, which is really welcomed also by donors because they want to know what we do. Not everybody running in the same direction.
I have a couple of copies of the manifesto. You can find both documents, grow Google them.
Let me sum up. Media Viability Manifesto is a key initiative for advancing not only consulting media on how to better reach the audiences but also how to establish frameworks that help media actually to do their job.
Then research, in general, I think, is something we need, but it needs to be strategically targeted towards what we want to achieve. And, of course, let me remind you of the international frameworks like the WSIS+20 review, and they must contain the essence of the functions of journalism that we all try to advance.
Thank you very much.
>> JULIA HAAS: Thank you very much for this useful information and for pointing to the need to safeguard journalism. It's not just about saving the newspapers, as we heard in the opening, but when we think about democracy and integrity, it's about protecting the role in democracy.
The media development sector is now under additional strain also, which means there is an increased need for better partnerships, for being more strategic, if being more focused and identifying what specifically should be supported and invested to build a better and healthier information ecosystem, and that's, I think, a perfect link to our next speaker and to Magnus Ag, Head of Public Interest Tech, International Media Support, to really precisely try to do that. To see the role of media sectors is to help ensure media thrives under all challenges but also to look at specifically what can be done. How can technology be leveraged? How can we make sure this big, concentrated companies are not just taking over the information space but, to the contrary, how can alternatives be built that are sustainable in the best‑case scenario or that can be invested in so people can access the credible and reliable information that journalists are supposed to provide.
Magnus, it would be interesting to hear from you. What is public interest tech, maybe, to start off with? Where do you see the role, also, of the media development sector with now this need for targeted action to support alternative infrastructures and to not only go through the assessment about the current ecosystem that's not in line with public interest but how can we create alternative? How can we support? How can we categorise the examples of local experiences and bring it to the international component?
>> MAGNUS AG: Thank you so much, both for the questions but, also, for all of us to pull us together. We merged three panels in this. Your work here has been outstanding. You don't get to say that as the moderator but as being on the sideline.
Collette, from my team, on maternity leave ‑‑ not given birth yet but looking online. Thank you, Collette, for getting us all here.
There's an anchor on three elements. IMS, who are we? Integrity, what do we see there? And how do the platforms fit?
IMS, next year is 25 years of media development with the model of supporting good journalism, the viability of it, the viability manifest to with Deutsch Welle and building on that.
What Jan just said, also, the safety component is key and the environment, over the years, it's been safety at some point, but, of course, digital environment is what dominates a lot.
So that's kind of where I come from and where we do this development work and where we have our partners is in areas of crisis and conflict and democratic transition. So the relationship with government is different and changing but not always easy.
So some of these conversations is interesting. The perspective there, from the places where you may not have the same level of trust in our government. And they're looking at the solution that's really exciting. Journalists building something, they're often the ones we kind of find inspiration from.
That's why the information integrity is we could by us. They're hit by information and they're paralysed or targeted specifically. The business model is challenged, and the ability to fight back is limited.
Information integrity hits at what our partners are trying to do and Guy Berger, our board chair now, that many of you know, the scale of weeds growing in this field is immense, and you're trying to remove it, but no farmer or gardener would stop there. It's an empty field. Plant some seeds, crops, something that gross and nourishes, and information integrity is a healthy framing. Reminding us of that is not to remove the weeds, not focus good efforts all around, but, yeah, some of that is good journalism, in a traditional sense. There's some other good stuff that has local participation and conversation, et cetera. That's what we're here to talk about. I'm excited about this solution focus on that.
I think the challenge, strategic and what we are trying to grasp, is this balance between scale and local context, understanding and agency. Right? When you look to the company and often talk platforms, you're blinded at how big Facebook is. What is the alternative? Are we building the alternative Facebook? Probably not. What is the Achilles? We have these wonderful partners that we have a trusted relationship with, five, 10, 20 years. They have this local trust and understanding. They don't own the Facebook platform or have the capital to build it, but it's not rocket science to host some of these thing. That's how we came into talking about public interest infrastructure, and this hundred years of journalism has a good understanding of what is in the public interest or how is the marginalised voice included? When it's anchored in local communities, it really has the power to change society or link up with other actors that uses that information for something.
And we frame that, then, as public interest infrastructure. I'm really pleased with these processes and the framing of that.
I think our partners, fundamentally, are having something to contribute there.
It becomes almost personal because there's good reasons when you walk around these panels. Some are so privileged to work at an organisation where you can focus. If you focus with a local partner doing something, maybe macro developments are pretty devastating in that country or globally, but there's a media house that's thriving or a radio station that has a good thing going on.
I should stop talking and giving the word to the organisations that are actually doing this stuff. Oftentimes, I go around stages and talk about ‑‑ for you guys to listen to what Maxence has to say and then think about how to scale it. Not necessarily that Max should take over the world, but what do you see with your hat on in a policy process that can scale or copy or we can learn together and come together and building something that's better. It's not that it's all journalism, but I'm pretty sure there's good skill there and methodologies.
With that, over to Julia and then Max.
>> JULIA HAAS: Thank you for your enthusiasm to the topic. This is something we need again, in these doom‑and‑gloom conversations, there's questions about how to scale it.
You already introduced our next speaker, but before handing it over to you, Max, I think it's important, after hearing you speak, Magnus, is really this integrity of information but also of the information spaces and the information ecosystem. I think this is rarely what we're talking about when we go into this infrastructure and how platforms, alternatives can be designed to make sure that information integrity flourishes but also because the system works. Right? So the infrastructure and the platforms are really important, and this, I think, is the perfect introduction to our next speaker, Maxence Melo, Executive Director, JamiiAfrica, Civil Society, African Group. He brought the example of JamiiAfrica, as we already heard. If you can introduce what this platform is and highlight to build before. What are your lessons? What are the fantastic work that you're doing to bring to this community. Look, this has worked, this has not worked what has worked, and how can others learn from it so we can really take it further and learn from the important work that you have been doing.
>> MAXENCE MELO: Thanks, Julia. Thanks, Magnus.
I'm not going to read anything because if I read, I get lost. I'm Maxence Melo from Tanzania. Please don't search my name. You will realise I've been in jail and in courts for the work we do. But we run an organisation known as JamiiAfrica. We have several platforms. One is Jamii forums and then ‑‑ countering disinformation. We have a change platform, which is a citizen‑centric approach, having citizens writing meaningful things regarding the spaces they're living in, especially in Tanzania.
We have a platform to empower citizens to speak freely without fear. We call it ‑‑ (speaking Swahili) ‑‑ it's a Swahili word.
We want to centralise data.
So JamiiAfrica works to have a more informed citizenry and work to have more responsive governments and have participating citizens in the economic agenda.
So we have five approaches that we employ. One is creating those digital platforms. We started back in 2002. In 2008, when the platform became more popular, I got arrested, and it was said that I was a terrorist back then. But I got arrested again. You may find it on the Internet. It was in 2016. There were three criminal cases against me for creating a space where citizens felt safe to have meaningful conversations.
And what do we do as a second approach? Making sure that we entice citizens, including journalists, making sure they become citizens who are more informed to hold meaningful conversations, and that also led me to issues.
But what we also do to make sure that we have created safety spaces for people is creating ‑‑ we have partnerships with mainstream media, and we have 46 ‑‑ that we have signed agreements with. We have trained journalists and have over 500 journalists that help us when we're fact‑checking issues once they're posted on the platform. The platform reaches more than 4 million people a day. With that, it becomes a local alternative for them to go and hold meaningful conversations and remain safe.
Of course, once I had those conversations, I went to the court 159 times, and my bank accounts were frozen. I was not allowed to cross the borders of the city, but, in the end, the aim that we're pushing for, as Jamii forums, is making sure we have a Personal Data Protection Act that guards people's right to privacy and making sure we have a right to access information. We have a Data Protection Act. I'm on the board in Tanzania. We have Access to Information Act, which gives people the right to go and ask for data.
In the spaces we have created, we're expanding to neighbouring countries. We're now into Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, DRC, and we're headed to Zimbabwe.
Whenever we go to countries, we don't treat countries the same as we treat Tanzania. What we do is making sure that when we do a country, we do a search with ‑‑ and media actors and state actors who are consistently working and also making sure that when we come up with a solution that works for the people. The reason is when you go to a certain region, the things are different from the country you're serving. When we're getting to Uganda, the kind of solutions we're providing to Uganda are different than Tanzania. Because I only have five minutes, I have only seconds, and I have to end there.
>> JULIA HAAS: Thank you so much for your introduction.
(Applause)
>> MAXENCE MELO: I appreciate that. Thank you so much.
>> JULIA HAAS: And I think this applause shows what I was about to say, but you heard it from everybody. Thank you for your inspirational work and really for standing strong and for showing, I think, also all of us here in the room and beyond that, of course, how us individuals and communities with the citizen‑centric, human‑centric approach can be shown to foster integrate.
Thank you very much for outlining it and, obviously, the work you do.
A few things that I think are really important ‑‑ I mean, everything was really important to hear, I think, also for this room.
But the aspects you outlined, this multistakeholder approach and some of the keywords that nicely link to this, principles that we so much like to talk about in this international forum. You like to talk about how it can work on the ground. I think this is inspirational to hear and learn from, in terms of how to take this forward.
Another thing you mentioned that I think is really important is that you focus on the platforms to have meaningful conversations, that it works for the people. This is what public interest is about and the journalism function is about. It's about enabling people to have meaningful conversation, bringing people together. So I think this is really a nice framing, after we have heard from all of our speakers.
We now have about half an hour to still discuss. And this is really the intention. I know you've heard now a lot from our fantastic speakers, a lot of different experiences, examples on the regional/local level, on the international level, the initiatives that are ongoing, but we would really like to bring all of you in if you think there are national examples that you would like to inform the room about.
Also, of course, if you have specific questions or something else to share, I also maybe should introduce ‑‑ and apologies for only doing it now ‑‑ Juliana Oms, Lawyer, NIC.br, who will look at the online side, in case there are any questions and comments.
Also, feel free, for those online, to post something there.
I don't know the there's already an immediate reaction. Otherwise, while you're all thinking, I would want to bounce back a question that came up now for me, at least, listening to all of you. This morning, actually, I looked at JamiiAfrica, at the strategic plan and kind of the promotional informational material that you have online. You have three keywords that you say are framed and your approach. It's inform, engage, empower. Excellent.
For me, this is really, first of all, of course, a powerful statement, that this is really everything you're aiming to do, but this is also how I, at least, would define journalism. Right? This is the role of journalism, of information integrity, and bringing it altogether.
So this is a question to you or all of you, whether we also ‑‑ we heard Jan also saying before that we need to safeguard the journalistic function.
On this conversation on information integrity, how can we frame it around the role that states or others can really take to foster this, inform, engage, empower perspective, to the journalistic function in the integrity space.
I don't know if other speakers want to tackle this after you.
>> MAXENCE MELO: Why we have inform, engage, empower? After it came out, the cases against me ‑‑ which some I won, and they didn't go public ‑‑ we need to remember that we need empathy. It's key. When I was having cases, I managed to interact with the police, some state actors, some citizens, some media actors.
One of the things I came to realise is actually some of them were wrongly informed. Some of them, we needed to engage them. Some of them needed to be empowered.
So in whatever kind of activities we're doing as JamiiAfrica, we inform our actors, meet state citizens and state actors and making sure they're making informed decisions.
When we engage with state actors, including media actors, and citizens, we make sure the information we're giving out there ‑‑ if you go to our social media platforms ‑‑ whatever information we're sending out there, it has the element of engaging the public, empowering them so they can make informed decisions.
Once a state actor is well informed ‑‑ and now we have special training to government officials in Tanzania ‑‑ we came to realise that whistleblowing stops. Once the whistleblowing stops, it becomes an instant tool.
Governments are supposed to be responsive. You have to inform them and empower them about how to respond.
After we started ‑‑ state actors started responding, but it's after starting the trainings to communication from the government side. In a nutshell.
>> JULIA HAAS: Thank you. This is an important aspect that we briefly touched upon yesterday. Now you mention this cooperation with parts of the government. I think this is important to consider, especially in the context where you said you were in prison and facing these court cases, and there were individuals you were involved with and ‑‑ those willing to drive information integrity forward.
>> MAXENCE MELO: I want to say something so when someone is reacting to this, it can be helpful to others. At times, there are times we want to engage or partner, and there are times when we need to disengage. There are times when you need to collaborate, partner, and, of course, align. In that process, you need to know there are partners with whom you can align without partnership. There are actors that you can partner with a partnership, and there are actors that you can have interaction without partnership or alignment.
You have to know when to disengage. You have to disengage when you realise it's not working the way it was supposed to work. ‑‑ the way it used to work
>> MAGNUS AG: The complexity is vast. When you look at it on a global level, some of the complexity, at least for me, is not removed. It's pretty complex. But getting it to a certain geography, a certain community, I think we should remember when we talk multistakeholder, it's not always to be up here. The global is important. From the perspective, the UN guidelines, there's an example of a really good framework at their kind of level and these kind of bodies, but the value further on is what is the national mechanism? What are we implementing with the local partners? What is the actor this month? It may not be the actor next month?
When the war broke out in Ukraine, we had partner there is, and we've had people trying to reach Big Tech. And suddenly, the logic was the big companies showed up. It's rare. When you're in the local context, they want to send people to the local level. But thanks to the Tech Ambassador, we were able to do things. Still, what the company came for is the local context understanding. They have not mapped out who is who in Ukraine. They were eager to listen. That's slowed down significantly for many reasons now.
When we talk multistakeholder, it's key to remember to take that to meaningful levels where we handle it, and the local understanding makes it tangible.
And an add‑on here, you hear journal and what Max is doing specifically, it costs money. It is not free. A really interesting approach. And there's declining funds. There's struggle. This is not easy.
One attempt we are piloting is can we unlock ‑‑ there's a business interest in having a ‑‑ society. What is the model there? What is a global donor? I'm able to facilitate. That's a hard one to do global‑global, but there's some intentions and some frameworks that we're working on, and then it's really down to the understanding of what are the business interests that can align? What is the government up for something?
All of us, integrity and the ‑‑ and the flowers, it cost money. That's a fact. Right?
>> JULIA HAAS: Yes. I think this is really an important aspect and something we could discuss. First of all, funding, what it needs to look like? And what does multistakeholder mean? What does multistakeholder for information integrity mean?
I know that Bea wants to reply, and we have a question from the floor.
So, Bea, briefly?
>> BEATRIZ BARBOSA: I think it's important to have a stage perspective. We need a stage to be in the middle of the conversation somehow because when we look to the local perspective and the difficulty to finance local journalism, even if we manage, for example, to approve a law or regulation, that platforms are going to create some funds to support journalism, there's always going to be a huge battle among the big journalist companies and the local journals. We saw this in Brazil during one of the debates in the Parliament for the journalism remuneration. When we started to debate, okay, are we getting into tax platforms? Who is going to bargain? Who is going to be at the table to negotiate with the platform? It's going to be global, for example, is the big Brazil companies, almost like a monopoly in Brazil? Or local journalism?
There cannot be strain in this process. Otherwise, we're going to have things coming from platforms, but it's going to be given to the same big companies that always rule the journalism in Brazil. So how can we be able to take advantage of this kind of process at this moment to really democratise a debate and foster and support local initiatives and fight against the news desert that we have everywhere? So we need a state at that point. Otherwise, it's going to be the journalists, not even the local media, but doing the jobs by themselves, having to fight the national companies that have always been able to get all the money available for journalism initiatives in the country.
>> JULIA HAAS: No. This is essential. I think it links to what we started off with to rarely say it's about pluralism. Right?
>> BEATRIZ BARBOSA: Yeah.
>> JULIA HAAS: Stating interventions need to make sure it's not backfiring, not localising and not heading to diversity.
So thank you very much.
Sorry. Give us a second. So we can put on our headphones. Yes, please, go ahead.
>> FLOOR: Thank you very much. I hope you can hear me. I'm Pablo with ‑‑ in Bulgaria. Thank you for making me feel at home as a journalist in television who has made the transition to ‑‑ in the civil field.
I have a question for you all. Since we're discussing distinct ability of journalism to abide to certain norms which serve social society and public interest, and these norms, unfortunately, have been in retreat over the past decades, as we can observe.
How would you think? Would you support a grass root initiative that's shaping ‑‑ thank you for what you're doing ‑‑ how do we put this on to the civil society communications in the form of self‑regulation? We can try to package it but use the same outside the norm?
>> JULIA HAAS: I think this is information integrity that is a starting point.
I see there are more statements. So maybe we'll collect a few so you don't have to stand around.
>> FLOOR: Thank you very much. I'm a member of Parliament from Germany. My question feeds into what Beatriz just said. What is the role for state actors in all of this? If we talk about now finding revenues for quality journalism, for independent journalism, these revenues, if they are collected by a state authority, then who makes the decision? Which media outlet gets it?
In this day and age, the well‑established public broadcasters are under attack and scrutiny. What mechanisms are effective? We just started this debate in Germany and raising revenue from the ads of the big platforms. But the question is, then what? Who makes the decisions? What are good models?
>> JULIA HAAS: Thank you. Please go ahead.
>> FLOOR: I'm Larry, CEO of ‑‑ connect safety ‑‑ I've worked for BBC and others and sometimes as a contractor. Like every human being, I've made mistakes over the years, and they were devastating. Silly mistakes. Once I accidentally referred to Macron as Prime Minister instead of president. I was horrified. I went to great lengths to make sure CBS corrected it. My MAGA friends are convinced we're full of lies, even though that's a major offense to deliberately mislead your audience. How do we make the case that those of us ‑‑ in my case formally and others working in journalism ‑‑ are working hard to tell the truth, independent of whatever ideology you subscribe to?
>> JULIA HAAS: Thanks a lot. Very easy questions. Thank you very much.
(Laughter)
>> JULIA HAAS: Just to repeat briefly, the first one was really pointing to the fact of the need of having professional standards, good norms of watchdogs and whether this can be advanced from the journalism sector to civil society at large.
The second is what is the role of the state and also just to make sure if state intervention wants to address this undue power of the big players, that then it doesn't lead to undue state control.
I think this is a very important question. I would like to follow up after the session with you.
And the third one is the most difficult. I don't know that we'll find an easy response to foster this whole conversation of a central role of journalism, of truth‑finding, of being fact‑based, evidence‑based, and not only ‑‑ I think as a moderator I will allow myself ‑‑ apologies ‑‑ to say one thing on it. Media literacy, information literacy, et cetera, it's very much about the individual's ability to increase capacity to understand not only what is wrong and what is right but, rather, to understand how it all works, where information comes from.
We try to add on to that and have media freedom literacy to help better explain the role that media and independent journalism and the journalism function plays for democracy, society, and for everybody.
So this is just one addition from my side. We can open it up. Maybe we can do a round. We have 15 minutes. Maybe you want to respond to the questions?
>> JAN LUBLINSKI: I don't think I can ad hoc answer it fully, but the first question, of course, this depends on national context and culture that's established, as you know. I'm not telling you something new here. But you can use the international norms and things well‑established and have a multistakeholder dialogue on what is now relevant and what needs to be put forward.
It doesn't have to be as big and grandiose and a government forum. It can be reshaping the agenda. I'm convinced these things can actually work.
The second question, on the role of state support and not interference, I think it's an important question, but I think we have to differentiate between media, financially independent and editorially independent.
I think it is possible nowadays that we have to face that media sometimes needs support, and public broadcasting is part of that.
There's the idea that they must be editorially independent, and there's provisions for that.
And there's public interest media, media that serves the public function. Then we, of course, cannot only have the state act as though the ministries decide how the money is being spent but the need to engage different actors, again, multistakeholders, to discuss how, in a given context ‑‑ I would like to stress there's a role for intermediaries that have the expertise to advise on these.
I'm sure you have other aspects.
The third is on media literacy. I think that's a component. Not only the classic journalist that is the gatekeeper and sends it out. It's the dialogue with the educated audience, obviously. We use the UNESCO term, the media literacy, which is not just an educated thing. To me, it's quite a political thing. It's about critical thinking and enabling, as Max says, right? Enabling people to take it into their own hands and discuss the advocacy on their access to information, on the, as you say, Julia, the media freedom literacy, so knowing how important media freedom is not only for the professionals but everybody. Everybody should have rights and go to the government and ask questions and get the data.
Express freely and have a fair dialogue and so on.
This is what people should be engaged in.
This is why I like Max's approach. I think it comes together, if you ask me.
>> JULIA HAAS: This is, for sure, an important aspect, the relationship between media and audiences that really has been disrupted, not only financially by these big gatekeepers and the engagement that makes it more difficult.
Who wants to come next.
>> BEATRIZ BARBOSA: I would like to give an example to talk about with Anne regarding the threat we have. Once we have a public fund, how to really be able to distribute the resources to foster a more diverse media landscape. I think that the multistakeholder approach is necessarily has to be there but not only regarding having small accompanies or local media outlets or big national journals but having civil society on the table as well, having some organisations that are not directly interested in having this money for them but to help approve criterias, for example, to help develop guidelines from the distribution of the fund.
In Brazil, we have a fund for cinema that works pretty well in helping to develop the national audio/visual sector in Brazil and works with the participation of different sectors from the audio/visual market but also from the civil society perspective. So independent producers and actors and associations from citizens in general.
So I think that each local country are going to have examples of what helps and what works and what doesn't work, but I think that this can't be an excuse for trying to implement these things.
What we felt at the Brazilian Parliament, the feeling was we don't know how to distribute the funds, so we got stuck on this debate and didn't move forward because it was a pretty complex topic to define what is journalism and what is not.
I agree it's difficult to define what is public interest journalism, but it's something we have to go forward and agree that we might have different concepts in each country, considering the history of the country and the composition of the society, the historic problems that each society has, but I think it's possible to move forward. We need this to be change that's not only about ‑‑ I think Magnus mentioned this at the beginning ‑‑ it's not about giving money for the sector. It's something that's related to democracy. So it's something that should be taken as important by everybody.
>> JULIA HAAS: Yep. Thank you very much. Also for safeguards.
>> I think regarding the norms and the challenges we're facing when we talk about public interest journalism, whatever it is, I think we have a challenge regarding the journalism schools. We didn't talk about this. We didn't have time to do it. So I wanted to find something regarding this. We're not training or preparing our journalists to face the challenges we have nowadays.
The schools are stuck in the last century, I think.
What you're seeing, unfortunately, is journalism adapting to the standards imposed by the Big Techs, seeking headlines and approach that generate more clicks.
And this is very, very bad for our proposal and regarding all the discussions. It's not only about the remuneration. It's not just about the framework. We're talking about informing people to produce a good content, a quality content.
And the schools have an important role on that.
So I think we have homework to do regarding journalists, and this has to be done side by side with literary initiatives.
The role on the states, I think Bea brings initiatives. There's things governments can do to foster a more ‑‑ ecosystem.
In previous government, Lula ‑‑ we call 1 or 2 ‑‑ I don't know ‑‑ so to support the ‑‑ we call free media points. It focuses on communities. And this is very important. It's another approach to foster public interest journalism.
Thank you very much.
>> JULIA HAAS: All have a role to play from journalists to civil society to state, all of us.
Magnus?
>> MAGNUS AG: I'm grateful for this level of conversation.
I'm really interested in self‑regulation and other norms and what we're trying to do with other organisations and alternative platforms that are aside to classic journalism. What is it that the journalistic tradition actually did over 100 years? How does that look when you have digital technology that's amazing? You can listen to your audience, your community, understand, engage in a way that you could went a newspaper. That's a good development in itself. Then we have all the tech complexities around it.
For that, it's not an easy task. We're starting an initiative with Jamii and from Singapore that we call Good Comments (phonetic). There's something from journalism. That will be part of it. But the spaces that are there, good comments, we really want to hear from people building it. This sounds like we should connect after.
On the state response, I think frame it two ways and the democratic function, I think people like Max have solved some of it. I live in Copenhagen, Denmark. The development mechanisms you have, are they also ‑‑ when you think of the German solution to this, there are different synergies. We're facing the same things around ‑‑ business model.
I don't think it's crucial to find synergies.
Larry, CBS, there are multiple components. Not easy but I think young people, they hear CBS News, and they don't really trust it. It's not a brand that generates anything for them.
I see what Max is doing, really listening. I think they trust the JamiiAfrica brand because they see things happening. I have a long appreciation for CBS and come from a media tradition, of course. But to meet people where they are, the pothole in the road, people post on Jamii that there's a hole in the road. That's delivered to a government office, and the hole is fixed. Maybe that's not even journalism, but when you add to the level of complexity and a problem solved, it's not that young people don't want to be involved. You saw the outlets and thorough reporting. People became advocates and want to make decisions for their lives. That has not changed. They're just doing it in different ways.
I think something like Jamii is kind of clever in how they approach that because that's difficult but also a new opportunity.
>> JULIA HAAS: Thank you.
>> MAXENCE MELO: Thank you.
In less than a minute, I'm not alone. I have those behind me at JamiiAfrica, but fact‑checking is tough. We have initiatives with five universities in Tanzania, journalism schools, so training on the use of AI in the information age, when it comes to fact‑checking.
When you're fact‑checking a president, for example, what is happening in Rwanda? We put all the facts in the space and let the public tide.
The same applies to Tanzania and other geographies that we're serving.
We also have a desk at JamiiAfrica. When there's something they want from our end, we can help them to make sure they fact‑check it as soon as possible.
We receive more than 500 discussions per day. You need a huge team to manage the conversations that are happening. Otherwise, we let the communities help us on moderation.
Thank you.
>> JULIA HAAS: Thank you so much.
I think this is perfect timing. So I will just take the last 20 seconds to try to obviously it's not possible to summarise, but this was an incredible, rich discussion. I think one of the key aspects, there's no one‑size‑fits‑all, but we have to look at the local context, even if we have these principles that apply to everybody.
There's an important role of the state but also to ensure meaningful multistakeholderism and synergies that were also pointed to.
And we have the uphold the role of journalism on the information integrity, and I want to add a sentence that was inspired by something that Magnus said before. I think that all of us really have a role to play in seeding the democratic seed by investing in journalism information integrity and the alternative platforms.
So please join me in thanking the fantastic panels and also the audience. Thank you so much for your contribution.
(Applause)
