UNESCO has published a short policy brief based on RIA’s work. Titled “Platform problems and regulatory solutions”, the publication appears in the series on World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development. It unpacks the factors accounting for disinformation and hate speech online, which are issues that UNESCO is seeking to address by creating guidelines on platform regulation.
In a succinct 16 pages, the policy brief sums up and updates the approximately 800 documents reviewed by Research ICT Africa for UNESCO’s global “Internet for Trust” conference in February 2023.
The new brief will be launched in Lyon, France on 10 July at the International Association for Media and Communications Research and UNESCO will be translating it into other languages.
Written from the point of view of the Global South, the publication urges a middle way between solo-platform regulation, and solo-governmental regulation. It analyses hybrid possibilities, which include effective multistakeholder roles in rule-making, monitoring and review in terms of platform operations.
