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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>> MODERATOR: Distinguished guests, partners, online participants, welcome to this section called From Fragmentation to Collective Action, Building Trust and Resilience Through Coalitions and Information Integrity. I'm Sarah Lister from the UNDP and for the Economic Cooperation of the Attorney's Office in Germany.
I'm welcoming you to this session at IGF 2025. We are meeting at one of the most important gatherings for the future of governance. And the focus on Information Integrity sends, I think, a powerful message. This is no longer a niche tech issue. It sits at the heart of how we protect trust, participation and democracy in the Digital Age.
The impact in our societies is significant, as we all know. It can distort public discourse, fueling polarization and undermining the accountability and responsiveness of government systems. It can delegitimize electrical institutions and processes, even those conducted with integrity. This erosion of trust strikes at the foundation of democratic systems. From Latin America to Sub-Saharan in Africa to South Asia, our partners are sounding the alarm that the public debate is under threat that much hate speech, particularly against women and minorities is on the rise and that new technologies, including AI are accelerating beau the spread and sophistication of harmful content.
In today's digital landscape where information holds immense power and misinformation can cause real harm, no single actor can address these challenges alone. Whether it's international organizations, governance platforms or Civil Society, all of us have a role to play. That's why collaboration and coalitions are more important than ever. And that's what we are here to discuss today.
But before we start the panel discussion -- and I'm delighted today to have three panelists in the room with me and three panelists online. So we have a busy discussion this afternoon. Please let me share the UNDP's own work on collaborations. In 2022, along with our UNDP partners, we looking forward global response to the ongoing challenges, and we launched the ongoing action coalition on information technology and elections. Bringing together diverse, global and regional stakeholders. And I see many of those stakeholders with us today, both in the room and online.
And as we gathered momentum at the global level and rules began to emerge, we also recognized the need for cooperative action at the national level. And in 2024, we supported the National Coalition on Information Integrity to engage stakeholders in protecting the integrity of the electoral processes at the national level. These provide multistakeholders collaboration, bridging the gap between media, ENBs, government, institution platforms and other stakeholders to foster collaboration and resilience against information pollution.
And these coalitions are showing real results. In countries where UNDP supports this work, we have seen how the coordinated rapid response and help to collaboration and improve coordination around elections and support more consistent, informed responses to information challenges.
So I'm happy to share that with continued support from the government of Germany, we will build on these insights to support a new set of national coalitions with the aim of promoting the integrity of the information ecosystem, not just around elections, but more broadly.
So today's session brings together a diverse and experienced group of voices to reflect on this urgent challenge around digital governance, how to build those effective coalitions and multistakeholder partnerships to protect information integrity. So we feel privileged to have with us today in person here next to me, Dr. Raphael Montero (?) national for the defense from the Office of the Attorney General of Brazil.
Online Constanze Nehor Head of the Director for Department of Policy Issues at the Economic Cooperation and Development. And we have Gisella Lomax from UNHCR. And online we have Ayman Mhanna, Executive Director from the Samir Kassir Foundation. And online Francesca Scapolo, the Election Integrity Public Policy Lead from TikTok.
So you will see we have representatives from across government and Civil Society and from the platforms, from the UN system. And today we will explore what it takes to move from fragmentation to collective action. And we do invite you, the audience here in the room and online to participate and ask questions and challenge what you hear.
So just before we dive into the discussion, let me just take a moment to tell you what to expect. It's designed as a round table style interactive as much as is possible with headphones and online and offline. I will do my best to support a dynamic exchange. So we have requested all of our panelists to make short interventions, and then we hope to have a chance to open up for open dialogue. There is one microphone here in the room, and the opportunity online as well.
So in order to support that hybrid participating we have arranged the lineup to alternate between in-person and online speakers to try to keep the flow going.
So I have asked each of the speakers to make an initial 3-minute opening reflection to focus on their experience with multistakeholder cooperation, coalition building and platform engagement around information integrity. So we will start here on my left with Dr. Raphael. Could we perhaps -- you know thinking of information integrity, give us some thoughts on what you see as the most pressing risks, and where do you find signs of progress or hope?
>> DR. RAPHAEL: Good afternoon to those in the audience and online. First of all, thank you for the invitation. It's an honour to join the discussion here at IGF. Learning from different perspectives and have the opportunity to share thoughts from the Brazilian experience.
Regarding recent press, as you know many studies indicates the rapid technology immerging technology, particularly AI is the cycle of information. From the stage of creation and segmentation to the massive distribution we are facing. A time when the process is becoming cheaper, easier and faster.
Such economies enable convincing and realistic personalized content as it shows. Now global and market contests low accountability and low digital literacy and the charge a perfect storm for threats. Not only to democracy in the elections, the recent Romanian/Argentinian case, but also to vulnerable groups often targeted to hate speech online and in general violence and fraud and scams. But on the other hand we are seeing progress in light of the regulatory response and safeguarding information for the national, regional and international level as well.
The most significant is on the core idea that behaviors that are legal online must also be -- offline is also illegal online. It's a sense if you are a -- a set of tasks the private sectors plays a sector ensuring a safe, secure and reliable environment. To align the GSA framework, many holding tech companies are imposing obligations and they are also demanding respect of human right.
As a Brazilian Supreme Court is about to conclude this week, in some cases also holding platforms liable for legal and harmful content. Including additional ads and boosted posts. These shift consumer right, child protections and other existing provisions over the companies (?).
At the same time, it's essential to note it involves a strong commitment to freedom of expression. The press, opposition, which preserves and protects this course and provides a vibrant atmosphere. While there is no silver bullet for positions and many gaps remain unsolved, this enforcement policy is part of best practice and bring us closer to the implementation of human rights standards, including municipal guidelines and the OECG recommendations so we believe in collaborative and long-term measures, this can empower all the stakeholders to tackle these challenges. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. And I think many of us have been looking to the processes going on in Brazil and how the judicial system is involved and how the balance between -- you know, supporting a variety of human rights, while maintaining that balance between freedom of expression and safety and protection of minorities, is playing out in your context. So we are delighted to have you here and thank you for your contribution. We will pass the floor to Ayman Mhanna. Ayman, it's great to see you again.
>> AYMAN MHANNA: The most important thing is on the attack, related to agendas we often hear. But also under attack by the funding cuts it's experiencing all over the world. The US is very complacent about its strategy to cut funds for international development, but European countries also going through significant budget cuts. While at the same time, announcing that fighting information manipulation is a top priority. And another major challenge that Civil Society is facing in this context is the lack of clarity among the different other players donors about what is needed from the different players in the field of combating misinformation.
Because in the context of funding cuts, and if I'm a decision maker when it comes to funding programs in Brussels in Paris and the US and London, it's my priority to help sustain London, Paris, Copenhagen based organisations that work globally, or my objective is to actually fight against misinformation where it's taking place on the grown. Sometimes those who objectives don't coincide. Because you need to actually cover salaries and taxes and rent in countries that are very expensive which reduces the impact and effectiveness of what you can do on the ground.
Sometimes also, and I do have maybe another iteration of our discussion, can I read very explicitly, without necessarily mentioning the donor of a formal written answer by one of the major donors. On a program related to information manipulation and information integrity, telling us that our urge is to give the impression we are doing something more than necessarily the full effectiveness of the project. So these are some of the challenges, funding cuts, smear campaigns and misinformation campaigns against Civil Society, lack of clarity about the objectives of the donors why we are being asked to act in the most effective way to save democracy and human rights and save trust in societies, otherwise the whole fabric of the society will collapse.
What to do, we will explore these ideas much further in the upcoming iteration. But it's once and for all an ecosystemic approach to fight for information integrity and for trust.
And when I talk about ecosystemic approach, it's not always through formal coalitions but making sure that actors that have very often been excluded from the discussion, such as private sector. SMEs, people in the tech world but not necessarily the big tech. But who are amazing engineers, amazing people in the tech sector and Academia in different countries. How they can work effectively together with creative ideas, leveraging the different areas of experiences of the different players. And where silos and prejudice from -- for example, Civil Society organisations that are often left-wing leaning towards private sector, and SMEs and people who are entrepreneurs in several sectors, how they can working together, like bridging these gaps is today not only essential to win the filing for information integrity, but definitely to win the fight for trust and cohesive societies in countries where everything risks collapse.
And I come from a country that has experience for a few months ago from a region that went through a war situation just last week. Information lack of trust and information was a fundamental weapon used by all belligerance. So imagine if this continues, our entire society is at risk. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Ayman, thank you so much for laying out the challenges that Civil Society is facing from the geopolitical to the institutional, and a whole spectrum. And then honing in on indeed that topic we are here to discuss in more depth. That economy systemic approach and how we can build coalitions for collective action. We are turning now again to the room to Gisella, what do you find are the most pressing risks and where do you find signs of hope.
>> GISELLA LOMAX: Thank you so much, Sarah, and thank you for your important points. I echo the amounts for integrity on the IGF program is encouraging. I would say that in the first instance, although the challenges are huge. This is the first program I've attended I led the UNHCR integrity.
If anyone is unfamiliar with UNHCR, who is not one of the best known players in the ecosystem -- although we have been present for years, we are one of the largest humanitarian organises with a refugee protection mandate working in 133 countries around the world to protect the world's refugees forcibly displaced in stateless community, which we recently announced is 128 million people.
A word on the threats to start with. Threats to information integrity on digital platforms especially, such as misinformation, disinformation and hate speech are very much correlating and causing and leading to real world harm. Especially in war, conflict, emergency, humanitarian settings. And while I feel there's good enough integrity to elections and public health, we would like to see a bit more attention to the humanitarian dimension, and that's part what have brings me here this week.
So we see harm towards refugees, hate speech, inciting violence, people exploiting online spaces, spreading misinformation to deceive refugees with false promises of safety or employment, leading them into dangerous situations. And also influencing public narratives to become even more hostile and polarised, framing refugees as security, economical, cultural threats and in turn influencing public policy, and of course new and emerging tech is transforming that. But won't get too much into that. Perhaps in the questions.
I would also say we are seeing challenges to humanitarian action itself. A survey of UNHCR staff across 85 countries found 20% of our colleagues have directly and personally been targeted with mis-and disinformation in their role.
We are seeing false narratives and misinformation which is practically hampering the delivery of life saving aids and access and eroding trust in humanitarian access and dividing our credible and impartiality as well. But there are opportunities to strengthen digital protection, which is how we frame in work, protecting refugees in the digital sphere and the real world and the correlation between. Improving access to reliable and life saving informing.
That's very much part of our work and our partners to provide trustworthy, credible information. And that's hampered by misinformation in social media themes and algorithms that don't promote. They may be less exciting even motive but frankly critical information.
Upholding true freedom of expression is freedom of expression for everybody, including refugees and, thible to receive information as well as to impart ideas. Foster social cohesion and to build digital resilience and trust.
I will give some examples in the second part, but one thing I would say from our model at UNHCR which is a definition of field-based pilot projects and practical work on the ground and a small headquarters capacity, is that this can only be done, of course in partnership. And we heard about funding cuts, the humanitarian sector has been dramatically affected by funding cuts. And as we have less, we have of course to be smarter and more fish to work collaboratively. There's a lot of skill sets that do not have a natural home in organisations and digital analysis and so on. How do we partner with organisations that can share that skill set and expertise with us and share resources as we. Hopefully can I speak a little bit more about some examples later on.
>> MODERATOR: Great. Thank you so much, Gisella, for highlighting the refugees that are most excluded on our globe and subject to abuse offline and online.
We are going to turn back on-line now to Constanze Neher from the refugee development.
>> CONSTANZE NEHER: Good afternoon, Sarah, and colleagues and good afternoon, everyone. I'm sorry I can't be with you in person. But I'm happy I can be with you online. As Sarah said I'm head of directorate for the federal ministry for the economic development policies. And I'm far away from being an expert in information integrity. But I think information integrity is one of the main ongoing future challenges world-wide.
Disinformation is not just noise in the digital space, it has become a structural threat to democratic governance and open societies. It undermines public trust and distorts political participation and shrink media and increasingly shrinks civic space. What we base is not just misinformation but a calculated of digital spaces and tools.
For political influence and economy Richardson leverage, all or the expression of democratic voice, it is important to highlight this is not a technical issue, it is a governance challenge.
To address this challenge we need more than good intentions, we need effective and trusted coalitions.
No single actor, not government platforms, no Civil Society or media can tackle this threat alone. And I would add nor the economy. From our work in partner countries we have learned three coalitions, first, coalitions must be embedded in democratic reform efforts. Second, local ownership is nonnegotiable. Only coalitions led and shaped by national actors will endure. Development partners must support.
Third context beats blueprint. What works in one country may fail in the other. Solutions must be rooted in local realities, political dynamics and include all relevant actors.
In this regard we very much value our partnership, Sarah with you and UNDP we support national coalitions that reinforce ecosystems and democratic norms and engage in global discussions.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much indeed. And thank you for highlighting this aspect of it as a governance challenge that we have facing to democratic norms and human rights. And we also very much appreciate the partnership with you in this area and look forward to the new set of national coalitions that together we can help support our national partners in putting together.
I'm turning back to the room to Giovanna. Please go ahead.
>> GIOVANNA ARTMANN: Thank you. Today I'm speaking with the support organisation and to address your question, yeah I think we are living in a world that is boiling with pressing issues and from the perspective of media and journalism had this can be best seen to this coalition of power and interest. What was already mentioned by my co-panelists of the states with autocratic tenants and power of big tech companies and here I'm not only meaning the usual culprits like social plead I can't or search engines but those that actually own AI systems and own data storages and basically run these whole data government frameworks.
As we know we are living in a world that is facing -- years of backsliding and 2024 was the year with this breadth and this deterioration which is a new level. Sarah, you already mentioned some of the reasons like conflicts and all sorts of different thing we are seeing but also state leveraging their power to kind of capture the media.
So as we can see partly some of these problems that we are seeing in the world are connected or related to the lack of actual media pluralism, media ability, erosion of trust in media and all sorts of things. So to actually enable kind of a safeguard information integrity actually it means a median directory. These two things are intrinsically connected and integrated. And signs of hopes I think are every wear.
Like my previous speaker was saying the numerous ways we work together and within the scope of the work of the UNDP working in cross collaboration how we work and GFND is one of the leads of the team Europe democracy network working Group 3 Media, and media and digital.
And we support GIZ all the Civil Society organisation we are supporting the effective principals for the support of media. So the aim is to help again the cross collaboration,in sector collaboration to help the member states, to help the EU institutions integrate these principals that themselves are also developed through partnerships into their policies and into their democratic institutions and to ensure that information integrity as such.
But also, as I said, as a bedrock of media freedom, actually becoming a pillar of the way we address information and technology issues and again this can only be done through collaboration. I will only address a you too more examples in the second question. Thank you so much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much, and I realised I used an acronym that maybe not everybody may be familiar with. You brought up why media are essential to this discussion in your contribution. But GFND is a forum for media development do you want to say one word what have that is for those who are not familiar with it.
>> GIOVANNA ARTMANN: For sure:
We are a network of 200 internationals related to safeguarding media of ability, in particular and trying to kind of address different funding problems, trying to change the narrative on the ways of funding are being governed and run and actually make sure that this is done through collaboration and kind of a raising up from this bottom-up approach, but I will actually explain a bit more about the way we work in my second one.
>> MODERATOR: Great, and thank you so much for bringing that voice to our conversation.
And last of this round but very much not least, we have Francesca Scapolo from TikTok. Please go ahead.
>> FRANCESCA SCAPOLO: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to join such incredible panelists and share a little bit more about the challenges we see as a platform in terms of information integrity but also the role, the increasingly important roles that platforms like TikTok play when it comes to safeguarding information technology through multistakeholder collaboration.
I would say that we saw on our side that platforms have become -- TikTok and similar platforms, sorry, have shifted from passive servers to active partners when it comes to protecting information integrity. So on our side we have campaigned a lot our collaboration with different partners, those being fact checkers and Civil Society organisations and also governments in trying to really tackle misinformation and disinformation.
When if comes to the biggest challenges that we see on our side, I would say that these are disinformation but also coalition separation. We have established strong rules against actors trying to manipulate information on the platform ahead of elections but also ahead of other key civil moments.
And we also have established different strategies to make sure that we engage constantly with didn't actors because we value partnership and collaboration. This is in fact one of our key pillars when it comes, folks for elections integrity. And it's something we value very much weapon have established, for example, local safety visionary councils and society lead theirs advise us on policy matters and really help us in participating in emerging threats within our community.
We know this is an evolving field and there is more to come with different examples through various electrics across the globe. And we are always trying to make sure we stay ahead of different life threat, and we keep improving policy and community guidelines to tackle emerging threats like misinformation but also man I will lated content, AI-generated content but deep fake and cheapfake and finally make sure we collaborate actively with different actors and we try to really stay ahead of emerging threats.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Francesca, and thank you for bringing that perspective from the platforms or from particular to being to us this afternoon and the willing tons engage in ongoing dialogue on these issues. It's much appreciated.
So we have come to the ended of the first round. And we are -- I want to thank all the speakers for being disciplined. We are not very far behind where we should be. So we can head now into a second round where we can talk in a little bit more depth from the perspectives of the panel. The panel members and their experiences.
Again I would ask you all to be disciplined and stay brief. So that we do have an opportunity to open the floor.
So we are going to turn back to Dr. Raphael. And as you indicated Brazil has been at the forefront of addressing information integrity challenges. What in your experience have been some of the mechanisms that have proven most effective in fostering this collaboration across sectors that you mentioned?
>> Thank you for the question, Sarah. First I would like to mention that our unity against disinformation, we see the Attorney General office for the UNDP for defense of democracy, as it is DNA drink by participation and social collaboration. This calls for instance the fully established the first 2023 following a broad consultation on limits and provisions.
At that time more than 80 specialists from Civil Society from Academia. Practicers and fact checking agents contributed as a formal work group to guided implementation. That it was a valuable mechanism. And similarly last January, they conducted public hearing for the policies containing moderation shifted. Particularly those related to hate speech and fact checking.
Such inputs coming from different actors fully presented before the Supreme Court for consideration attacking the culprits. And the third mechanism cooperation agreement have provided evidence for legal action. We have an understanding with leading research institutes and units.
And we are also planning to working to with fact checking agents. One of our recent lawsuits against? Involved scams involving ads with governments and manipulating images of feeders was base on this type of partnership. Digital partners are also actors to collaborate. We see massive floods in the states, the leaders combat information and clarifying the public service and government response during the extreme weather events.
At the international level it's worth note following the last G20 summit, Brazil is leading a global initiative on informing integrity on climate change. UNESCO and UN and other countries and France, U.K. and Chile and Sweden and Denmark.
This recent coalition we are searching for next steps and new acts related to environment feud, especially the upcoming convention in Brazil. The information challenges must also be addressed by encouraged cooperative approach, bringing together different stakeholders.
We are looking forward to engaging in new national cross-sector and cross-border partnerships to this end.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much for being very practical in your answer and outlining very practical mechanisms, working groups, public hearing and coalitions. I'm sure there will be many other countries present who will want to ask questions about that and learn from the Brazilian experience. That's very help.
Thank you.
We are going back on-line to Constanze for the next question. You talked about how information integrity is essential for democratic governments and democratic government for all context, including in the Global South. And what have been the most effective tools that you have for to help defend democracy in these contexts?
>> CONSTANZE NEHER: Yeah, thank you so much, Sarah for this question. Maybe let me clarify first one thing, and you already mentioned it. It's not only about the global house but strengthening information integrity is essential for democracy world-wide. And I think we should look at thein connectedness of the issues. Strengthening information integrity is not a simple task, without trusted informing, citizens condition make informed decisions, hold government to account or resist manipulation. In short no integrity, no democratic legitimacy. Disinformation is not an avoidable disturbances. In our systems it is a targeted strategy.
In the context it is of use to support silence, human rights defenders and civic voices. In democracy it erodes electoral trust, fuels division and wreaks in civic space. We notice that in Germany too. Unfortunately this often has a general component, women in public life are disproportionately affected by disinformation and hate speech. In many partner countries we are witnesses the strategic use of this as a too.
Disruption.
Just let me put an example in Africa, 6% are reportedly financed by foreign state actors or I would add by strategically used private actors I'm just bearing in mind that information contains against LGBTQIA+ rights in Kenya and Uganda for groups. We have seen how campaigns fuel hate speech and social divides and threatens democracies, the consequences are particularly severe. It effects political stable, public safety and social cohesion.
If you want to defend democracy, it needs open electrics and open information ins. Though strengthening information and integrity is one way to protect public space and aid in democratic invasion and partnerships for the key purpose are key to delivering that.
From our work in partnerships four strategic approaches stand out, I think. First advanced media and information literacy at all levels. Not just for users, but for policy makers, I would include myself, Civil Society, educators and influencers. Understanding how narratives are shaped is essential to respond constructively.
Second, support smart regulation with safeguards. Regulation is needed, but must be designed to protect democratic values and freedom of expression. The aim is accountability, not censorship. Third strengthen public interest media. Independent journalism remains one of the strongest means against it, it provides public trust and fourth invest in coalitions we heard about how examples you work in effective coalitions and how you work jointly. Just to put an example in west Africa we support multistakeholder observatories that connect governments, media, regulators and Civil Society. And these platforms build evidents, strengthen institutional capacity and promote coordinated responses to online harms.
And maybe as it was mentioned earlier we support the Europe democracy initiative. We have shared approaches and peer exchange with democracy media freedom and protection of human right. It's about the working group my colleague mentioned earlier. And we also work on the topic with our strong -- you might know them, and German government financed DW Academy. Especially after the shutdown of USAID and the consequent withdrawal of funds, DW Academy is a crucial actor and the international media development seeks to work in coalition and work jointly. So thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Constanze and for highlighting again that transnational almost as well as the fact that these issues everything all contexts and dynamics in one stage or on the international stage with then be played out in a variety of different contexts.
And -- you know thanks, Germany, again for decades of support to this field of public interest media, including through the DW Academy and many other initiatives. So I think Giovanna has more to say.
>> GIOVANNA ARTMANN: Yes, indeed, we believe --
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-- there are two principals going back to your question --
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By bringing in the donors to listen to people turning the story to the grants into something that this community designed, right. And governed the funds.
Also with other Ukrainian colleagues recently we have an event with the science of UNDP colleagues. We build trust and information integrity and tried to strengthen the community ties and long-term localised investment. That is really important if we are to see this bridging between all different actors and their different interests but also all different human rights appeals to trying to address here in this way. Second kind of principal is building alternatives and waiting I don't know traditional funding in governance by shifting power means going beyond the donor funders and coordination Wes believe that the bottom deny-up coordination with a new collective own infrastructure.
So the intermediary are not just funded but it can set the agenda and drive their long-term stainability and yes indeed we are work on the journalism lines is one initiative it's an open cooperative platform, everything in the cloud infrastructure that is a digital backbone of independent journalism, so by prioritizing interoperability and shared ownership and public interest governance, we are moving away from these dependencies that exist with big tech companies that I mentioned and strategic tools and giving journalists and media a public good in their own hands and not the other way around.
So in doing so we are challenging this assumption for the donor driven models so rather than replicating that, we are building cooperation and stainability and the very tools and infrastructure that media use every day. So it's an alternative way of thinking of it.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much indeed for highlighting those elements of how actually many actors are coming together to try to shift these power dynamics as we see. Power getting concentrated across the world in certain actors and in certain ways that also feeds often to geopolitical interests. But actually there are alternatives to that. And that many here, here in Lillystorm (?) are talking about this week. Thank you so much for bringing that perspective.
Now we are going back on-line from Francesca from TikTok. From TikTok's platform, how do you see information integrity evolving. Do you have examples where your collaboration with coalitions has led to improvements in intellectual integrity or informing resilience?
>> FRANCESCA SCAPOLO: Yes, thank you for your questions. I mentioned this before. But I would with TikTok and other platforms general have shifted from being passive observers to active partners when it comes to protecting information through general partnership. We all see that tackling misinformation and disinformation really requires a coordinated action and bringing together platforms and citizen organisations and independent factors to pursue the combination.
On our side at TikTok we have reinforced moderation efforts through partnerships with 20 global fact checking bodies, and together we work with them to identify and also swiftly remove misleading content, including AI-generated ones, whether it's false claims about election dates or attempts at border expressions. These are just examples. But these extend beyond election integrity efforts and everything that is considered harmful on our platform.
And we target immediately to see campaigns working with Civil Society organises, and we also roll out election centers across -- not only Europe but worldwide.
And these's are really important because they deliver reliable information and try to equip users with tool to critically assess content.
But I would say this is just part of the work we are doing when it comes to collaborating with different partners and coalition on election integrity. Because the cornerstone of our strategy is our continuous engagement with -- what I mention broad, that is our local safety advisory councils which is a group, again of academic and Civil Society leaders who advice us on policy matters and really help us anticipate emerging threats within our community.
But just to give you a few examples of how these comparative approach was panned out and is like our work around the 2024 European parliament elections. So in partnership with the electoral commissions but also Civil Society groups and fact checking networks we launched the election center in all the 27EU member states and this offers guidance on working procedures and media literacy campaigns and those were supported by moderators and local languages and enabling a swift and accurate response to a specific race to the elections.
And the impact on our side was clear, because those election centers were viewed over 7.5 million times in the four weeks around elections. And in addition to that, we also set up search partners for people when searching for election video that were redirected to these elections.
But this was in addition to our work around removing harmful misinformation. And I can share more than 200,000 videos violating our misinformation policies were removed. And over 96% proactively. With 80% being taken down before any view. So this was also like our work. An example on the European side.
But our efforts very much extend far beyond Europe. And I'm happy to share a little bit more what we did ahead of the South African 2024 elections, where we worked closely with the independent election and Civil Society partners such as Africa Check and Quote for Africa in that case we established a taskforce with internal teams but also a mull lingual electric center and that included also sign language and also implemented various media literacy campaigns and these included sign language videos to try to reach diverse audiences.
So I would say that platforms like TikTok now play a more and more important role when it comes to the coalition to really build information resilience, and on our side by trying to combine a practical moderation but literacy and transparency engagement and really trusted partnership. We have seen measurable results with millions of electric center visits and really impactful regional interventions.
And really these efforts demonstrate when we unite for a purpose across platforms and institutions, but also Civil Society. We can fully strengthen the about integrity of our democratic information environment.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Francesca, and for bringing specific examples as well that show the multistakeholder approach where the platforms are also engaged in Civil Society and in the case of electoral bodies as well can really effect the information environment and the information ecosystem around elections.
We are coming back to the room now to Gisella. You spoke about where most of your work is done. In crisis affected settings as you noted disinformation can deepen risks and undermine trusts. How do you think the UN and humanitarian actors can take a stronger role in working with platforms and other actors to protect information integrity, especially where communities are hardest to reach.
>> Thanks very much, Sarah, I think what Rafael mentioned and with the global integrity and impact, these are two key things and specifically refugees were specifically mentioned in global digital exact and the information. And in the humanitarian sector as I really emphasize, this is a grave concern. But frankly we do have massive challenges. I think everyone is probably aware of the financial issues, the funding issues we are facing. So I will be frank that we are looking for more support to continue to ramp up this work in a collective way.
But perhaps I could give just some examples of how we are working. I think as Constanze said, emphasizing the importance of local context. And I also heard another speaker talk about grass-roots. I think that was you. And local is core to our response. And simultaneously, we are talking about a small number of global, social media, digital platforms, operating largely in the same way regardless of context. Yet the response has to be contextually specific. So we are looking at coalitions and partnerships that are local, playing into regional, including regional governance bodies, playing into global, including engaging with these global platforms.
I would say -- you know, I think taking a local to global advocacy point that, people who use social media in less common languages, in noncommercial markets for these companies, war zones where they are not selling advertising. A disproportionately at risk, you know for various ways.
And on this, we do have a need, and we are trying to do the UNHCR to collect studies with are bring to a forum like this and bring to the platforms in a strategic and aligned way.
But in terms of partnerships I will give a couple of examples. I mentioned local and I will also say community first. So working with affected communities with refugees themselves.
I mentioned a survey we did of UNHCR personnel. And another question there asked how empty our colleagues know of refugees and refugee-led organisations themselves taking direct action to strengthen information integrity. And more than 30% of our colleagues knew explicitly of refugee-led organisations. They are not waiting around for us. People are already acting. And I'm sure that percentage is actually way higher. So how can we better support communities themselves in refugee camps and humanitarian contexts. And I see that very strongly as part of our role.
So we have been working with refugee groups and especially women. I think Constanze also mentioned that gender dimension, time and again, place after place, women and girls are also disproportionately affected.
I mentioned in my earlier intervention the point about skill sets. We have really had promising partnerships with digital rights organisations such as the association for progressive communications if I might give a flag to one of our partners. Academia as well.
Governments, member-state organisation, and I can see among the panel with Brazil I would like to say at the New York level for the last three years, Brazil has co-organised a protection of civilians week even on information integrity, which has been very important for bringing these examples up to palsy makers that at the New York level. I would also like to high I the government of South Africa.
Yesterday, some of my colleagues had a dynamic session prepare sending a pilot project we are working on with the government of South Africa to tackle xenophobia. And if you would like to learn more. We are proud of this positive and constructive example. But perhaps before I close, and I can see the clock coming to check. Digital platforms dominate the world ecosystems and with great power comes great responsibility. They have an outsized responsibility to act, including in places that is not commercially imperative or regulatory reasons to do so.
We work closely -- we try to work closely with these platforms but we are very worried by the weakening guardrails and reduction in safety capacities. So we really do encourage the platforms to continue to come to the table and engage and share information and especially around early warning systems or consulting communities and policy development.
We are here. We are open to partner. And I think this is a really important need we all need to press for. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Great. Thank you so much. And if I can take my moderator hat off for a moment and comment in relation to your comment about the less common languages or the context in which money is not being generated for technology platforms, because advertising is not considered a priority there. That we have also consistently saw that the attention to the information integrity and the response from platforms in those contexts has been very different from perhaps the focus that there is in Europe or elsewhere.
But thank you for giving those very -- you know useful examples of what are you doing, and also reminding us all that -- what the UN system and global actors can do is always in support of those who are already taking action in that context. So we are coming to our last speaker and I hope we will have time to open up for questions shortly. So please be thinking about those. We are going back to Ayman for the last panel intervention. And I've done well with all of my paperwork until this moment. Here we are.
From a Civil Society perspective, what are some of the key challenges and the need Civil Society actors face in participating in some of these collective actions and these collaborations? You mentioned some of them in your first intervention. Perhaps would you like to go a little bit deeper into that. Thanks.
>> AYMAN MHANNA: Thank you. I placed my last answer on walking the take. We placed so many instruments, fact checks, yes, it's very important and should be embedded in the role of every journalist. But at the same time it depends on the whims very often of the platforms, whether or not to give visible to the fact checks responses, whenever information that is purely incorrect is spread. And how much they have to actually boost their content to have -- like some visibility.
Whereas horrible content may spread organically in terrible ways and then the policies can change. And given the level of polarisation in society can you show you a all the facts and all the numbers. We don't necessarily have evidence that can sway significantly people who are already made up their mind. We speak about media information literacy. Let's actually look at the numbers. I'm a number person. 2024, overseeing development aids, roughly $212 billion. That's a 7% decline from 202-3678 you know out of these 212 billion how much has gone media information environment, redevelopment, intermediary, journalism training and personal freedom and general literacy and personal safety, et cetera? It's around 0.5% of the 212 billion. So we are talking nearly $400 million.
And if we basically -- so 0.19%, because the rest is infrastructure costs. Like broadband, et cetera. $400 million. Let's compare it to the annual budget of Russia today. $600 million. Let's compare it the budget of the Iranian international TV system. That was 1 billion. So all donors combined to talk about everything we spoke about with good intentions are only given $400 million a year.
And out of which less than 1% is going to be on information literacy. So we can have all of these beautiful small projects in schools here and there. It's nothing compared to the budgets that are placed by those who are actively polluting the information ecosystem. So as long as we are not aware of -- like the hail of the fight we are talking about we remain for good intention. And this is what is painful for Civil Society organisation. We are asked to do so much, but the millions made available are laughable. Sorry for being so blunt.
This is why it's a different approach that we are hoping for, where we need to do so much better with so much less. Not more with less. And this is why I go back and close with my issue of an ecosystemic approach. I condition believe that people who work in the hospital tall sector and the craft sector, in industry, in trade and -- who are not necessarily part of our world and our conversations, are happy with a democracy or a political system where everything is collapsing. But how can we engage with them specifically for them to place their advertisement where actually intermediary is doing a good job. How to actually bring organic money from the society to the fight for a better society and for better information. This is one of the key tracks we should be looking into. Saying how can we leverage the most important and smart brains in our academic circles in our research circles who are working with Artificial Intelligence, not only to import and adapt systems that -- you know major companies are launch, but what if we can very much local predictive algorithms for -- to detect early on campaigns that are still in the making and be able to find them way before they reach the scale they typically reach.
This is why I go back always to the idea of work across the aisle, not with our opponents. Across the aisle with people who are not today attending this conference. Who we do not see in the media development conference and the international aid conferences and the development conferences.
The key to the solution resides in building bridges with them. Because if we only want to rely on donor relationships, one, the budgets are decreasing and two the budgets even if they are not decreasing are nowhere near what is needed to even engage in the beginning of a fight compared to what the nefarious actors are doing. So this would be my call. And I hope I can at least find allies among so many of the participants to think about it more deeply together in the coming weeks and months.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Ayman. That's a great way to wrap up the panel part with a call to all of us to -- you know, branch out. We talk about coalitions but to think creatively also about others who need to be in those coalitions.
We have about 6 or 7 minutes for questions. Maybe 5. So that we have a chance to go back to the panel for some responses. If you would like to -- if you are in the room and you would like to ask a question, please line up at the microphone. And I gather there are a couple of questions online if we have time. So let's go to the lady at the microphone. Please introduce yourself as well.
>> QUESTION: Thank you. Nice to meet you. Cebia (?) -- worldwide developer (?) --
It's really fantastic to hear the concern and the work around building coalitions on information integrity. And I just wanted to point out that the technical community has been working on the providence of information. And to be able to assist different new software and new tools to identify the reliability and integrity of information that exists on databases and different applications on the web.
So I would like to call also the organisations that are supporting these creators, these content creators to just refer to the literacy specifications to be able to incorporation those into how they create content, not only so that content is rendered correctly according to cultures and languages but also to be accessible for people with disabilities and also enter act with any platforms or tools for assistive technologies but also to assist in information integrity.
There is a lot of effort on personal IDs, wallets, payments, transactions, and all of those technologies that is starting to interplay with other content that exists in relation to how you participate in democracy. So it's very important that the creators of these contents use the standards, the Meta data and the attributes of all the coding when they do. So when someone is trying to help make assurances that that content exists, it is possible to do so. It is also important for when organisations are pulling content to train AI models. The more that content is categorized, utilizing the existing standards, the more accurate that will be in assessing and assisting, mapping that information. So I know standards might not be most sexy component in the room but I always want to remind people it's very relevant to the work that coalitions are doing. There are technical tools that creators and designers can use, that public publishers can use just to make sure the content is easily accessible and they can exist in that process. We are around the rest of the week. We are an email away. So please search for us and we will be happy to explain what we do. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much.
That's an important contribution and I've just learned something. Yes, please go ahead in the room.
>> QUESTION: My name is Yana (?) -- I work for DW Academy. One of the larger organisation. I'm still blown away on what Ayman just said because he discussed urgency of what we are discussing here and I congratulate you Sarah for this panel because this is what we hope the IGF to be in order to have an multistakeholder approach to burning issues and targeting on what can be done, not just what it is but what we need to do.
I have a small comment but also a question that is then for Gisella. For my side, we are building coalitions now that the money is being shortened and we are in dramatic crisis situations. We are good at cooperating with communities of mere development and (?) so on. It's harder to bridge the gap to enable community I will give you an example. Network with Civil Society. But talking to the legal experts it's so much harder and taking to the foreign ministries and their groups. Although they should be a multistakeholder process, the media coalition it's very hard to actually do that.
Same thing for the Europe democracy initiative. You know we have three working groups but these three working groups be one is on legal and institutions and one is on Civil Society and one is on media and digital. But they should be talking to each other because democracy is not about individual silos. And this is quite a challenge.
My last comment -- and this goes then to Gisella. We need communities to come together. The network. We want to bring both communities together, but it's not just media or individual conversation. Because there are gaps and differences in understanding of what need to be done to take on board local communities in crisis and really engage.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
>> QUESTION: As you rightly pointed ow. My question to you, Gisella, what is important to bridge this gap in the case of humanitarian aid communication and media development? What do you think -- other thing we should be doing.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Sorry to cut. In we have two more questions in the room. And then I'm afraid we will close the questions. Apologies people online. But we -- I will hand it back to the panel for 1 minute before we close. Please go ahead in the room.
>> QUESTION: Hi, my name is UG, I worked with one social media company before. So while my research in information targeted last year, this question is related to the resource of fact checking resources. So I looked at IFCN authorized fact checking organisations, and I found at least when I looked at it, none of them are from -- based in Russia or China.
And in fact, there's a lot of information actually also around these two countries. So my question may be addressed to the lady from the TikTok, is when you choose the partners from -- about fact checking organises do you -- how do you evaluate it? The geological coverage, or maybe, for example, the fact checking resources all a special group like refugees? I'm just curious, maybe do you find out there might be enough resources for some groups or some countries or some facts that --
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Just the last question to the gentleman behind you. In -- as shore as you can make, it please.
>> QUESTION: Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I am Amen (?) -- I'm with parliament representing the youth parties. My question is can our resource persons share some of the best practices as to how the multistakeholder model can really be implemented in the context of elections. Because in the case of the Philippines what we often have is bilateral. It's the commission and elections with the media. The commission and electrics with the big tech companies. But it's not really multistakeholder. So any insights. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. And we can certainly follow up with you afterwards if there sin time with the pan.
He now the clock has turned red which I fin very stressful so I will turn to any of the panel members. Francesca there was a specific question to you. Plus any others who wish to make a comment but don't feel pressured so I will take 2 minutes to wrap up. Francesca do you want to answer that question.
>> FRANCESCA SCAPOLO: Absolutely.
On our side we work with 21 fact checkers that are credible with the international fact checking network. So one of our key aspect of evaluating partnerships and coalition. So it's important when we evaluate fact checkers to understand they have capacity locally to really support our team and really support our work.
So we do that for assessment. But I also want to -- I think this is very important. I also want to stress that we do not just partner with fact checkers but also with local Civil Society organisations. So when we launch, for example, media literacy campaigns we generally try to reach out with local organisations and try to collaborate with them. So it's a very expensive and realistic approach we use to make sure we very much look into all of the contexts that you mentioned, make sure that we cover as much as possible and give a voice to everyone on our platforms and make sure that we have all the resources available to support our community on that.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Francesca. Boiana has passed a fine remark. Gisella.
>> GISELLA LOMAX: I'm very grateful for the work from the academy -- he does exceptional work and pleased to join you in Vaughan. I think what is missing is more inclusion in communities. Context is everything. I'm preaching to the convert, but still let's try to mobilise that together.
And I would also say speed and something inspiring. There's an organisation a Norwegian organisation I met this week. They have a stand in the marketplace that could fact check -- sorry to the Norwegians, fact checks organisation, linked with digital literacy called -- Tank. Is that -- sorry minor wee began is still not very good after five-days nos low. Any ways I was so impressed within days of fact checking misinformation they have it on their curriculum in the classrooms. I think a 3-day turn-around from a major event, spinning out misinformation to the teachers and given the tools to talk to the children. That is outstanding. Go and visit them. We need more of that. Back to you, Sarah.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Constanze, or Ayman would you like a final remark. Ayman shaking his head. I have never seen that before.
>> CONSTANZE NEHER: I will make a brief final remark. I will really take with me a call for action and for action of media viability to support media viable and organic funding from societies. Because I think we saw with the withdrawal of the US funding where it leads to and how -- really the whole effect S sector, the international media development depends on international funding. And I just want to show that we as Germany and via the Deutsche academy and GIZ and our partnerships I mentioned before we will stay engaged. But we also suffer cuts. So it's working bettering to. And I really take with me -- and I quote what Ayman said. He said "I have to do so much better with so much less."
So that's my lesson I take away.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Dr. Raphael, in 30 seconds.
>> Considering all the challenges I mentioned today I do believe we need a mixed approach combining education and the misinformation environment.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. We have come to the end of our time. I don't really have time to wrap up more than to say I think we have heard that coalitions of all sorts at all levels are the way forward. That actually working at local levels is super important. And we need to be looking outside at non--- even I don't know coalitions to those that we don't normally invite to coalitions so I will just finalise by thanking all the panelists with me in the room and online.
Yan was gracious in thanking me but I had little to do with this panel except for showing up I would like to thank the team and partners in Brazil and thank you to the tech team for putting to this session. Thank you very much.
(Applause)