GDPD Weekly | The “Pointed Fingers” edition

Global

• Nations traded accusations of weaponizing information at this week’s heated UN debate. At this week’s United Nations Fourth Committee’s debate nations from Moldova to Malaysia highlighted challenges ranging from election interference to conflict-related disinformation.
• ASEAN representatives at the UN’s Committee on Special Political Problems and Decolonization emphasized the need for strategic management of public communications to combat global misinformation, particularly around armed conflicts and climate change.

“The United Nations should place information and public communication at the centre of strategic management, while ensuring the provision of clear, timely, well-founded, accurate, reliable, comprehensive, objective and fair information with the highest level of transparency.” - Vietnamese Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang, speaking for ASEAN

Key Points of the UN Committee Debate

Africa

• The Action Against Fake News Network has launched a nationwide mobilization and sensitization program across Nigeria’s 36 states to combat fake news, aiming to reinforce democratic resilience. The program is part of broader efforts that include partnerships with the U.S. government and Nigeria’s Ministry of Information, responding to a 2020 survey indicating that 71% of Nigerians view fake news as a significant problem encountered daily.
• A special report from Nigeria looks at how disinformation following a deadly drone strike in Kaduna fueled ethnic tensions, with online posts falsely accusing Major General Valentine Okoro, an Igbo officer, of orchestrating the attack on Muslim worshipers. The disinformation spread rapidly on platforms like X and Facebook, igniting hate speech and threats against the Igbo community.
• This piece by Adu-Twum Sadiq offers a critical analysis of how misinformation and disinformation threaten Ghana’s democratic stability ahead of the 2024 elections, drawing parallels to past African incidents where rumors incited violence and deepened social divides.
• Meanwhile, in Tanzania, a government-led HPV vaccination campaign targeting girls aged 9 to 14 faces resistance due to widespread misinformation, especially fears about infertility and foreign population control agendas, fueled by rumors on social media.
• Finally, another case of disinformation-justified internet shutdown: ahead of its November 10 elections, Mauritius has suspended social media access, aiming to curb misinformation and potential unrest. The communications regulator announced that this temporary blackout is intended to prevent false information from influencing voter behavior and to maintain order.

Americas

• U.S. intelligence agencies have identified Russia as the source of three fabricated videos aimed at undermining election integrity, including false claims about illegal voting in Georgia and alleged bribery involving Vice President Harris. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) characterizes the current scale of election-related disinformation as a “fire hose,” exceeding previous cycles.

This is false, and is an example of targeted disinformation we’ve seen this election. It is likely foreign interference attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of the election” - Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State

• Iran and Venezuela’s communications ministers met to discuss potential collaboration on communications networks and countering what they term “false information,” with particular focus on media coverage of events in Gaza. The meeting signals growing coordination between these nations on information control strategies, with ministers discussing approaches to what they view as “cultural invasion” and emphasizing the need for “independent countries to cooperate” on communications infrastructure and content moderation.
• Ecuador Chequea’s recent six-month study revealed that 94% of verified social media content on migration in Ecuador consisted of disinformation, frequently fueling xenophobic narratives. Key false claims, according to editor Alexis Serrano Carmona, include linking Venezuelan migrants to crime, insecurity, and unemployment.
• A new analysis outlines the Brazilian judiciary’s expanded efforts to combat election-related disinformation ahead of the 2024 municipal elections, focusing on initiatives like the Permanent Program to Combat Disinformation and the Electoral Disinformation Alert System (SIADE). These measures leverage real-time monitoring and AI regulations to limit false narratives in political advertising and curb bot-driven misinformation, while partnerships with media outlets and civil society reinforce public trust. Despite progress, the analysis points to challenges in uniformly applying these strategies across Brazil’s municipalities, where technological disparities may hinder the fight against disinformation.

Asia-Pacific

• In a recent discussion, Broken News creators Alex and Jonah Lesning-Ku highlighted Taiwan’s role as a testing ground for advanced disinformation tactics, primarily from China. Unlike Western experiences with disinformation, Taiwan faces a deeper, multi-prong assault involving fake news, AI-generated content, and on-the-ground influence through co-opted political, media, and religious channels.
• The CEO of the Fiji Cancer Society has warned against faith-based organizations spreading health misinformation, specifically addressing claims made during a recent crusade that religious faith alone could cure cancer. The statements come amid concerns about cancer rates in Fiji, particularly among iTaukei women in their 40s and 50s, and highlight ongoing challenges with health misinformation and stigma in the region.
• India’s government has challenged Wikipedia’s status as a content intermediary, issuing notices over alleged bias and misinformation while questioning the platform’s self-characterization as a mediator rather than publisher of information.

This means that anyone who edits a Wikipedia page is potentially susceptible to identification because all one has to do is file a case. In the case of politicians especially, the edits will be fraught with risk. This will mean that Wikipedia editors will hesitate when editing pages pertaining to powerful people, and this has a chilling effect on speech - Digital rights activist Nikhil Pahwa

• India’s Cabinet Secretariat has issued new guidelines directing all government secretaries to rapidly counter perceived misinformation on social media, with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry developing formal Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for responding to “fake news/misinformation/motivated criticism. The initiative comes as government data shows 71% of Indians prefer online news sources, with 49% relying on social media. Officials raised concerns about what they term “deliberately delayed” responses by departments allowing misleading content to gain traction during critical “golden hour” periods.

The information and broadcasting ministry will prepare an SOP to respond to fake news/misinformation/motivated criticism/misleading, distorted and inaccurate facts/opinionated news/miscommunication in print, electronic and social media - Cabinet Communication

• Pakistan’s polio eradication efforts face escalating challenges as misinformation and militant violence contribute to a surge from 6 cases in 2023 to 45 in 2024. Religious leaders, once sources of vaccine hesitancy, have emerged as key allies in combating health-related misinformation, though security remains a critical concern after recent attacks on vaccination teams and their police escorts.
• The Indian School of Business’s Institute of Data Science hosted a hackathon focused on technological solutions to combat AI-generated misinformation, bringing together 28 teams to develop tools for deepfake detection and ethical content frameworks.
• The Philippines has emerged as a global testing ground for disinformation tactics, with professional PR agencies and ad firms orchestrating sophisticated networks that employ young digital workers in precarious economic conditions. Research indicates massive investment in covert opinion manipulation, with an estimated 600 million to 1.5 billion pesos ($10.7m to $26.9m) spent during the 2022 Philippines elections alone.
• According to new research from the Stanley Center: Digital technologies are amplifying identity-based violence worldwide, often through disinformation campaigns that weaponize racism, sexism, and xenophobia to target marginalized communities, suppress social movements, and stifle press freedom. In Myanmar, disinformation campaigns have exploited social divisions, transforming social media from a liberating force into a weapon for government control, human rights suppression, and incitement of violence against vulnerable groups.
• The Cambodian Ministry of Information claims to prioritize legal protections for journalists, reportedly assisting nearly 40 journalists through mediation and court support in 2024. Ministry spokesperson Tep Asnarith highlighted this at the “Confidence in the Cambodian press: Ethical journalism for the public good” conference, emphasizing a commitment to “fair, impartial” press freedom—though only for those adhering to government standards. However, the ministry’s emphasis on controlling “false information” and actions against journalists like Mech Dara, whose legal issues are attributed to “inciteful messages,” underscores a selective approach to press freedom, where protections align closely with the state’s narrative around acceptable journalism. According to Freedom House’s analysis, journalists have increasingly avoided reporting on sensitive issues including Hun Sen and his son Prime Minister Hun Manet, land disputes, corruption, drug trafficking, and political issues due to increased online surveillance, legal action, harassment, and intimidation by authorities.

Europe

• The French media literacy association “Lumières sur l’info” has launched a novel outreach initiative using a “news truck” to travel throughout the Île-de-France region for 20 days, engaging with communities that may be disconnected from traditional news sources. The initiative aims to help citizens develop critical thinking skills for identifying misinformation and understanding journalistic work, with visits planned to schools, town halls, and retirement homes.

These are audiences that have a lot of suspicion and distrust towards us. For us, it’s an opportunity to understand why they think this way and have so many questions about the media - Florian Guadalupe, journalist and association member

• A recent investigation reveals how disinformation during Spain’s catastrophic floods complicated emergency response efforts and exploited public emotions, with false evacuation warnings and emergency contact information circulating on social media. The flooding, Spain’s worst in a generation, killed over 210 people, with the spread of misinformation becoming so severe that regional officials had to publicly intervene.
  • Maldita.es has documented multiple strands of disinformation that emerged during Spain’s recent DANA (cut-off low pressure system) flooding disaster, including false claims about dam demolitions, weather warnings, and various conspiracy theories.

They’ve spoken about evacuations, overflowing, the bursting of dams: none of that has been correct, but it has notably interrupted the emergency services’ work - Jose Miguel Basset, fire service chief

• WIRED reveals that crowds gathered in Dublin’s city center for a non-existent Halloween parade after being misled by an AI-generated listing on a holiday-themed website designed to generate advertising revenue. The site’s owner, who runs an SEO agency, claims the false information was an unintentional error from combining AI tools with human editing to create content that would rank highly in Google searches.
• Russia’s World Youth Festival Directorate convened 100 foreign journalists and bloggers in Kaliningrad for a forum ostensibly focused on disinformation and media integrity. This is an example of the sophisticated ways authoritarian states co-opt contemporary discourse around information disorder to legitimize their own forms of narrative control. The initiative parallels similar international media outreach efforts by state actors attempting to reframe discussions of disinformation through their preferred conceptual frameworks.

Middle East

• Anadolu Agency reports Turkey’s Communications Directorate launched a state initiative focused on Israeli-Palestinian conflict narratives, positioning itself as an arbiter of information accuracy in the ongoing conflict. The government-sponsored program includes planned public education campaigns about information verification.
• A case study from Democratic Erosion reveals how Turkey’s recent Instagram block, affecting 50 million users, fits into a broader pattern of using content moderation and platform access controls to shape information flows. Turkish authorities blocked over 58,000 domains in early 2024 alone, demonstrating how content removal demands and platform access restrictions can be weaponized to control public discourse while being framed as efforts to combat misinformation.

We will do what is needed to establish a social media that respects our values, is free of disinformation, and is cleaner and more secure - Omer Fatih Sayan, Turkish Deputy Minister

• Saudi Arabia’s National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (NCOSH) has issued a statement refuting what it calls “misinformation” about construction worker deaths, highlighting the ongoing tension between state narratives and international media reporting in high-profile development projects. The statement came in response to an ITV documentary that claimed 21,000 workers have died in Saudi construction projects since 2017.

What did we miss? How can we improve this digest moving forward? We want to hear your feedback.