As AI turbocharges spread disinformation, it increases support for the media | Opinion

Lies spread six times faster than the truth on the Internet.

This is quite an alarming figure, but perhaps not as worrying as the time it has taken the international development community to act in response to the world’s growing information crisis.

Misinformation, rumours, and lies – which took a huge human toll during the global pandemic – look set to be turbocharged by artificial intelligence. At the same time, the collapse of traditional advertising markets has left independent media vulnerable to capture and suppression by illiberal political interests.

Authoritarians seeking to consolidate their power are finding new ways to use the legal system to silence and punish critics. The Internet and other means of digital communication, once touted as “liberating technologies,” have been weaponized by dictators against journalists and civil society activists inside and outside their borders, including through the use of commercial spyware. In the 42 countries that the V-Dem Institute considers increasingly autocratic, the decline in freedom of expression and the press has led to the erosion of democracy.

However, three recent studies show how little development aid is targeted at the media and information environment: just 0.5% of overall development assistance, about $1.5 billion in 2022, according to a recent map by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). . However, even this figure is an overestimate, as it includes large investments in infrastructure that are rarely given attention to support democratic outcomes. Support for the development of the news media sector – so important to functioning democracies and good governance – accounts for only 0.3% of official aid, according to the Center for International Media Assistance.

Private philanthropy has done better. According to the Trust, Accountability, and Inclusion Collaborative, in 2017-2021 US-based philanthropists spent 2.7% of their total investment on promoting healthy information ecosystems around the world (mostly in the US), although only a fraction of that goes for aid recipient countries ($1.3 billion out of $21.3 billion). Much more can and must be done globally to keep pace with the evolving nature of information threats to democracy and development.

Building healthy information ecosystems means supporting local media and civil society organizations to do their work effectively.

However, where international aid should be at its best – making sure funding reaches local frontline actors – it has disappointed.

Of the small amounts of official aid that flow to the media sector and the information environment, only up to 8% goes to local organizations, according to the OECD study: $740 million of the $11.7 billion spent by donors during 2016-2022. In contrast, over the same period, $3.27 billion went to international public broadcasters, notably the BBC World Service and Deutsche Welle, which we do not consider development aid and have excluded from our analysis.

Most philanthropic funding is also channeled through northern intermediaries, mostly based in the United States. Those most vulnerable have been left out – again.

However, there are reasons to hope that we may be at a turning point. The OECD has raised this issue as a priority for international aid, recently adopting a set of six principles that should guide donor investments in the media sector and information ecosystems, “to preserve, protect and promote media integrity and information of public interest”:

∙ Ensure that the aid does not harm public interest media;

∙ Increasing financial and other forms of support;

∙ Get a whole system perspective;

∙ Strengthening local leadership and ownership;

∙ Improvement of support coordination; AND

∙ Invest in knowledge, research and learning.

The emphasis on a “whole system perspective” reflects the growing awareness of the value of taking an ecosystems approach – considering all the interrelated components to ensure that information is created, shared and used responsibly. Momentum seems to be growing at the political level as well, with greater attention to these issues from diplomatic initiatives such as the Coalition for Media Freedom and the Summit for Democracy. As a sign of growing political will, countries have also created new global funds, such as the International Fund for Public Interest Media and the Global Media Protection Fund.

Barriers to improving the quantity and quality of financing are multiple; this is a politically sensitive area, technically complex and competing with other global priorities. But not only are media and access to information essential to open societies, accurate information also pays huge dividends for government accountability, social trust and sustainable development, as confirmed in a recent review of the evidence by UNESCO with the help of Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz.

While investments in information integrity have been modest, they have been impactful.

Foreign donors provided only $150 million to support the development of Ukraine’s media sector between 2010 and 2019. However, even those modest investments inoculated the country against one of the most aggressive disinformation campaigns of our time.

It is time to increase this aid to the rest of the world. The new OECD principles should be a turning point and the beginning of something better.

This was first published on the From Poverty to Power blog hosted by Oxfam.