UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is introducing a new element into the concept of the world organization’s peacekeeping activities: countering “misinformation” and “hate speech.”
And tech and media companies are being enlisted to help in weeding out information that the UN decides to consider as harmful.
Given that, like the saying goes, truth is typically the first casualty of any war – and this goes for any and all sides involved – it’s difficult to envisage how the UN might even start going about the task of “countering” misinformation and hate speech while maintaining its neutral and credible position in peacekeeping.
When he addressed a Security Council debate on peacekeeping operations, dedicated specifically to the “key role” of strategic communications, Guterres did not offer useful insight into that problem, but he did put strong emphasis on UN’s Global Communications Strategy, describing strategic communication variously as critical and central for successful peacekeeping.
Hellbound and Down 