On the eve of the Ministerial Conference on Information, Democracy and AI uniting the States of the Partnership for Information and Democracy on 24 September in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly, the Forum on Information and Democracy and its coalition of civil society organizations publish a call to action to safeguard information integrity in the AI era.

Artificial Intelligence is the latest technological innovation that is profoundly transforming the global information and communication space. It’s here, and it’s reshaping our world in unprecedented ways particularly with the availability of generative AI and AI’s role in content moderation and recommender systems. 

The history of social media has taught us that leaving the architecture of our common information space to private interests comes at a great cost: disinformation, polarisation undermining democracy, peacebuilding and social cohesion. We cannot afford to repeat these mistakes. We must not put innovation and economic interests before the interests of humanity and democracy. 

At the occasion of the Ministerial Conference on Information, Democracy and AI taking place on 24 September 2024 in New York in the margins of the UN General Assembly, we urge the States of the Partnership for Information and Democracy to take all democratic measures to ensure that AI becomes a tool for information integrity and not a weapon against it. Democracy depends on information integrity and access to reliable information. 

We, the undersigned members of the Forum on Information and Democracy’s Civil Society Coalition, call upon States to put information integrity at the centre of their AI agenda and deliver tangible progress until the AI Action Summit to be held in February 2025.

More specifically, we call on democratic States to: 

• Recognise the risks AI poses to information integrity and take concrete democratic measures to put AI at the service of an independent, pluralistic, diverse and reliable global information space. All measures must strictly comply with international human rights law and standards.
• Implement robust measures for public interest research into AI systems guaranteeing its independence and integrity, to empower independent actors to study AI systems from the inside.
• Strengthen transparency and accountability of AI systems by mandating clear documentation and traceability of AI decision-making processes, especially in content moderation and recommendation algorithms, to prevent the amplification of disinformation and harmful content, while also providing for effective remedy mechanisms.
• Put in place truly inclusive mechanisms for AI policy making paying in particular attention to the voices of the Global South and vulnerabilized groups to ensure that AI does not reinforce but rather reduces existing harms. This requires a multistakeholder approach that recognises the media and journalism community, and those who support them, as key stakeholders in future AI and internet governance discussions.
• Support the independence and financial sustainability of civil society and researchers enabling them to play their watchdog role and engage actively in international, regional and national AI policy making.
• Encourage and support the creation of a voluntary certification mechanism for public interest AI to foster the development of AI systems in the interest of democracy.
• Promote the development of public digital infrastructure that would enable journalism organisations and similar public interest sectors to access secure, affordable, sustainable, and accessible cloud computing services and AI tools.
• Leverage the Partnership for Information and Democracy to promote democratic safeguards on AI at the global level and put AI at the service of fighting inequality.

Signatories:

1. ALCRER ONG, Benin
2. AfricTivistes, panAfrican
3. Aláfia Lab, Brazil
4. Centre for International Governance Innovation, Canada 
5. CIVICUS, South Africa
6. CyberPeace Institute
7. DataLEADS, India
8. Defend Democracy, Netherlands & Belgium
9. Digital Access, Cameroon
10. Digital Rights Foundation, Pakistan
11. Freedom House, USA
12. Free Press Unlimited, Netherlands
13. Forum on Information and Democracy, France
14. Fundación Ciudadanía y Desarrollo, Ecuador
15. Global Forum for Media Development, Belgium
16. Homo Digitalis, Greece
17. Instituto Panamericano de Derecho y Tecnología – IPANDETEC, Central America
18. Intervozes – Coletivo Brasil de Comunicação Social, Brazil
19. Jonction, Senegal
20. Laboratory of Public Policy and Internet (LAPIN), Brazil
21. Maharat Foundation, Lebanon 
22. Media Monitoring Africa, South Africa
23. OBSERVACOM, Latin American and Caribbean
24. REPPRELCI, Ivory Coast 
25. Reporters sans frontières, France
26. Secretariat of the Open Government Partnership, USA
27. Samir Kassir Foundation, Lebanon
28. TEDIC, Paraguay