Session
Speaker 1: Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard, Denmark’s Tech Ambassador, Government, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 2: Julia Haas, Adviser, OSCE, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization
Speaker 3: Beatriz Barbosa, Journalist, Coalition for Rights on the Net, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 4: Jan Lublinski, Head of Policy and Learning, Deutsche Welle Akademie, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 5: Magnus Ag, Head of Public Interest Tech, International Media Support, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 6: Maxence Melo, Executive Director, JamiiAfrica, Civil Society, African Group.
Theater
Duration (minutes): 90
Format description: We seek a 90-minute workshop in a theatre layout to bring global, diverse and cutting-edge stakeholders from tech, media, policy and government together with the IGF community celebrating and learning from some of the very best solutions the Internet has to offer. We invite the whole IGF community to join us to learn and take actionable steps to collectively realize this vision of digital public interest infrastructure. Within a tightly moderated format, we would like to prioritize at least 30 minutes of discussion with the audience between our pioneering speakers who have real-life and successful experience building and scaling the solutions the Internet needs.
A. What role can independent journalism play to bolster information integrity and contribute to building healthy online information systems?
B. How is information integrity conceptualized and addressed by different regulatory or developmental initiatives around the world? And what role can States play to bolster information integrity?
C. How can multi-stakeholder collaboration contribute to scaling and replicating best practices to safeguard journalism in the digital age and promote alternative discussion platforms in other geographies, cultures and linguistic communities?
What will participants gain from attending this session? Participants will benefit from the discussion on the complex concept of information integrity through a multistakeholder perspective, and will explore different approaches to strengthening information integrity. The workshop discussion will not only identify the main perspectives around this topic and present policy guidance, but will also promote the exchange of concrete experiences and lessons learned about how different solutions have been applied. As we further seek to inspire the design of digital public (interest) infrastructure that services and is serviced by high-quality journalism, those attending will better understand the critical discussion around the concept of journalism as a public good. Those joining our session will have the opportunity to engage with high- and working-level stakeholders from tech, media, policy experts and government across the globe who are using their positions to (re)create a digital space that serves the public interest, not profits nor public figures.
Description:
The year of 2025 has so far brought drastic, consequential changes to our information ecosystem: social media platforms have altered their standards on content quality, the AI industry decreased its engagement in human rights discussions, and the international development community took massive reductions in funding. These alarming developments have put independent journalism at peak levels of economic, digital and physical risk.
To address these growing challenges and strengthen and scale promising solutions, the global community has established a number of standards and processes that can contribute to advance media viability, media freedom and thus information integrity. Situated within newly developed and on-going global governance developments are the OSCE recommendations on Media & Big Tech, which underline the interlinkages between media viability, visibility, and vigilance in the digital age, the Media Viability Manifesto, a civil society developed a framework to promote the economic sustainability of editorially independent and diverse media, and the Freedom Online Coalition Blueprint on Information Integrity.
Equally noteworthy are cutting-edge local solutions like alternative social media platform JamiiAfrica, which hosts public discussions and journalistic investigations that are moderated and fact-checked under empathetic, public interest principles. On the other hand, in Brazil, disputes arise over the regulation of platforms and their impact on journalistic activities, making consensus-building difficult to reach on the best way forward.
This session will bring together representatives from these diverse spaces within the IGF community to celebrate and learn from these potential tailorable solutions. Join us as we bust through threats to information integrity and strategize around how to build digital public interest infrastructure that aims to decrease the harms and increase the benefits from tech platforms in the information ecosystem.
This session aims to generate collaborative dialogue based on policy recommendations and concrete examples, leading to actionable strategies for policymakers and digital platforms on information integrity. Expected outcomes include a summary report that highlights key discussions and regulatory and technical strategies to inform future policies across stakeholder groups. The session seeks to present initiatives for collaboration in research, political organization, and technical partnerships to promote ongoing dialogue for strengthening information integrity and journalism globally. Participants are expected to gain insights into the evolving information integrity landscape and its practical applications, focusing on the application of regulatory and technical solutions in varied contexts. The session will explore challenges and opportunities faced by the Global Majority and Minority, including debates on the topic's convergence across jurisdictions. It will provide diverse perspectives on integrating human rights, ethics and responsibilities into digital spaces, aimed at creating a healthier information ecosystem.
Hybrid Format: The session will count on onsite and online moderators. The onsite moderator will oversee the organization of interventions and engage with the speakers to ensure that the session's goals will be sought appropriately, also with attention to meeting diversity expectations of the interventions, both by the speakers and the audience. The online moderator will take care of the flow of questions using all the online tools involved in the session, while selecting, reading, and guaranteeing that the onsite moderator will be aware of questions and comments from the remote audience (Zoom Chat and Q&A).
Report
On 24 June 2025, the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media (RFoM), International Media Support (IMS), NIC Brazil, and Deutsche Welle Akademie jointly held a hybrid workshop at the 20th Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Lillestrom, Norway, focusing on information integrity through journalism and alternative platforms. The session was organized as a multi-stakeholder dialogue, bringing together Denmark’s Tech Ambassador Anne Marie Entgoft Meldgaard, Renata Mieli (Special Advisor for the Ministry of Science and Technology in Brazil), Beatriz Barbosa (Coalition for Rights on the Net), Jan Lublinski (DW Akademie), Magnus Ag (IMS), and Maxence Melo (JamiiAfrica), to bring different perspectives in the discussion that were moderated by Julia Haas, Adviser to the OSCE RFoM.
Linked to the first theme of the IGF, “Building digital trust and resilience”, the session aimed at exploring concrete solutions for supporting information integrity through quality journalism, while addressing the challenges and dominance of big tech companies in the online information ecosystem, and exploring alternative platforms and public interest technologies.
Denmark’s Tech Ambassador Anne Marie Entgoft Meldgaard opened the discussion underlining the central role of journalists for democracies, recalling that democracy is a process happening every day, and not simply during the act of voting. Citizens need to be able to have informed discussions, exchange views and opinions on important matters for the society, and for this, journalists’ work as well as a healthy and sound information environment strengthening democratic debates are essential.
Among the numerous reflections shared during the workshop, the main takeaways were:
- It is central to highlight and protect the core functions of journalism in democracies, which are to inform, to enable societal dialogue, and to take those in power to account. Journalism plays an essential role for information integrity, which has to be understood as a positive concept focusing on building trust, agency, and diversity of information, rather than just as the action to combat disinformation. Local context plays a key role in this regard.
- Information integrity cannot be achieved without a meaningful and inclusive multi-stakeholder approach including civil society actors, media organizations and state bodies – and tech actors. Participants acknowledged the complexity of multi-stakeholder work, and highlighted the need to discuss different approaches, and to avoid government and corporate capture. Participants also acknowledged the urgent need for the media sector to align on an agreed advocacy agenda, and to develop better partnerships and strategies in the sector.
- There is a fundamental incompatibility between the current structure – and infrastructure – of the online information ecosystem, dominated by a few big tech players, and information integrity. Big tech companies control with unprecedented influence the way news and information are distributed, to whom, when and how. Their business model undermines media visibility and viability, creating media dependencies on platforms and a fragmented information landscape – which can, and often has been, exploited by malign actors.
- In this context, participants acknowledged the need to ensure fair renumeration and compensation for journalists and media outlets, and mentioned different models such as copyright remuneration system, bargaining agreements, and platform taxation. However, a main challenge concerns the complexity and the potential danger to define what is journalist content, who is a media outlet, what should be remunerated by platform taxation etc, which are a necessary step when it comes to the distribution of funds collected via compensation mechanisms. The role of states in this regard is essential, they need to carefully design regulatory framework fostering media freedom and the public interest without reinforcing state capture or reinforcing monopolies and dependencies for financial resources, to the detriment of smaller local media.
- The session also explored avenues to counter the trust crisis that independent journalism is facing, in particular among young people, including through media innovation. While participants acknowledged that technical and regulatory solutions alone cannot address this trust issue, the crucial role of media (freedom) literacy was emphasized.
- Alternative platforms are key examples highlighting how local solutions can foster meaningful civic engagement, while maintaining high journalistic standards. The platform JamiiAfrica from Tanzania is a successful example of such an alternative model, built on information integrity, localization, and the public interest. It proposes multiple services such as fact-checking and discussion forums and is partnering with 46 community radios in Tanzania. Reaching 4 million of people daily, JamiiAfrica demonstrates that alternatives to big tech dominance are possible, while maintaining democratic values and journalistic standards. It also shows the importance of understanding local contexts before developing new tools, as there is no one-size-fits-all model.
