As a parent, I find it hard to accept that social media platforms are designed to addict our children. Their developing brains are especially vulnerable to anxiety and the need for validation.

Their feeds are designed like slot machines, delivering an endless scroll of chance rewards while exposing them to increasingly extreme material. Some of this includes content promoting self-harm, suicide, pornography, extremism, and violence.

Much of this content created cynically to play on a child’s insecurities, leading them toward actions they would otherwise not make. Wrecking lives. All this, in formative years that shape long-term identities and world-views.

Survey after survey finds teens feel worse after using social media.

Studies show that youth mental health is in crisis.

Courts are starting to agree, and taking aim at platform designs.

Last week, a landmark ruling fined Meta nearly $1 billion (USD) over addictive features and enabling exploitation and harm against children. The judge ruled that Meta created a ‘public nuisance’ as it significantly contributed to the teen mental health crisis and facilitated child sexual exploitation.

This harm is no accident. Platforms are designed to manipulate users. Hold their attention, harvest their data. The algorithm doesn’t care how. This is a core part of the business models. Whatever it takes for the bottom line.

No child should be at the mercy of an algorithm they have no choice over, which was not designed to safeguard their interests, and which tracks their behavior to keep them hooked.

And AI is making things worse. Kids now confide in AI “friends” that mimic empathy — sometimes coaching them toward self-harm. In some tragic cases offering coaching on how to tie a noose or even drafting a suicide note.

And a recent study from Australia found more than half of children and teens are turning to AI for personal reasons, exposing them to a range of risks and harm.

As the UN official leading on global communications, I am committed to working for a healthy information environment for our children and youth. An environment that is kind, and offers opportunities for connection, learning, and creativity.

Ahead of tomorrow’s International Youth Day, my team at the UN Department for Global Communications is releasing an issue brief on Children, Youth and Information Integrity.

It is a blueprint to protect and empower children and youth. To prioritize child safety and rights in design and regulation. To put brakes on AI which is compounding these risks, shaping what young people see, believe and come to trust through content generated by systems that remain opaque even to the experts studying them.

The solutions in the brief are holistic, and involve multiple stakeholders and solutions to get the formula right. Young people need empowerment alongside protection. Restrictions drawn too tightly can wall children and youth off from the world, from the information, community and support they have every right to.

Many young people already showing what a healthy information environment looks like as creators, community organizers and leaders.

What they also need is the opportunity to participate, and literacies that keep pace with complex information systems.

Empowering and working with children and youth for solutions is a core message in Children, Youth and Information Integrity.

I hope it will provide insight for everyone working in this space, from tech companies and AI actors to governments, advertisers, media, researchers, civil society and communities.

Above all, I hope it helps those of us working to build a better digital world. One designed with our children and youth, rather than for them, and that prioritises their safety and well-being.

AI to hire, AI to fire. AI for credit offers, AI for health treatments. Big firms and companies are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence to make important decisions about our lives.

Not only that, marketing and media agencies are using generative AI daily in marketing and communications work. Telling stories that shape our world. Forming narratives that determine how we see ourselves and each other.

Too often, studies show human oversight of these tools is minimal. That’s a big issue, especially for women. That’s because, studies show, AI has a bias problem.

Of 133 AI systems tested, one recent study found 44% were biased against women, while 26% showed both gender and racial bias.

Large Language Models (LLMs) are almost as bad. Chat responses consistently associate women with domestic and caring roles, and men with money, career and power.

One UNESCO study found 20% of responses studied were sexist, portraying women as sex objects or as their husband’s property, for example.

This is not a glitch. It is baked into the data these tools are trained on. Simply put, AI learns from past data, and the past is biased.

What’s more, with fewer women than men online globally, especially historically, they are underrepresented in that data. That means the tools have less information about women. And what data they do have is less representative.

The result? Hateful stereotypes reinforced or even amplified, with grave impacts on women’s finances, mental and physical health.

All this, as AI makes it easier to target women with online violence, including with deepfakes, manipulated video and images — many of them sexually abusive.

Last year, UN Women found one in four women human rights defenders, activists and journalists had been violently targeted online, often with AI.

Yet we are giving these tools ever more power. Increasingly, AI is being relied on to make crucial calls at speed.

With figures like that, it’s worth asking ourselves — do we really want to rely so heavily on these new tools that are rolling back progress and baking in prejudice for the future?

Or perhaps the better question is, do we have a choice?

One obvious solution is better representation. Women need to be in the rooms where AI is built. Yet currently they make up only 30% of the global AI workforce. That needs to change.

The UN is demanding AI actors develop these tools safely, in line with human rights, and deploy them for the good of humanity.

To that end, we are bringing together men and women from around the world to find answers to these questions and more.

Last week, global representatives gathered in Geneva, Switzerland for two key meetings on AI.

First, the United Nations Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance brought together governments, industry, civil society, and scientists to guide the path and pace of AI development and to better represent the whole world in the conversation.

Second, the AI for Good Global Summit focused minds on how AI can help serve humanity — hopes range from ending global hunger or reducing cancer deaths, to tackling climate change.

But there are big drawbacks involved with AI too.

Ahead of these meetings, UN-convened scientists warned in a landmark report of “considerable risks” and, if mismanaged, the potential for “catastrophic outcomes.”

Regarding women, the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI agreed that “AI is being used to promote misogyny online.”

“Deepfake-enabled sexual violence” is “disproportionately harming women and children,” the authors wrote, warning that “some 99% of deepfake videos target girls and women, including women journalists.”

“Further, 88% of leading AI researchers are male,” they added, noting that “current AI models exclude and discriminate against many individuals, communities and cultures.”

UN Women is raising the alarm on AI gender bias, and calling for gender equality to be embedded in all stages of AI development.

The window to shape AI tools and their development is closing. Governments, AI actors, and developers face a choice.

A different outcome is possible. If designed safely, AI tools could help tackle the very problems they are now compounding.

As UN Secretary General António Guterres said, “Let’s ensure Artificial Intelligence serves its highest purpose: advancing human progress, equality and dignity.”

On January 27th, at the United Nations, the General Assembly Hall echoed with the searing testimony of Holocaust survivors. Everyone who heard them speak was profoundly moved. At the core of each graphic story of horror and survival, a stark appeal:

Remember the light you carry.

One by one, they took the podium. Survivors — now in their late 90s — who as tiny children witnessed horrors no one should ever see.

Voices like Marion Blumenthal Lazan, who as a little girl survived years of starvation and forced labour in Nazi camps, with death as a constant companion. Or like Sara Weinstein, whose mother died saving her from a murderous mob and who survived for years hiding in the forest.

Hearing these women describe the hell they went through, I struggled at first to fathom the sheer strength their lives had demanded of them. How had they found the will not only to survive, but to live? To move forward, find love, have a family, and be happy?

But then, as I listened, I noticed a pattern emerge. These brave witnesses were not only offering us a warning, they were offering us a lesson. Every survivor ended their speech with an urgent call:

Reject hatred, choose love. Raise your voice for the dignity and rights of every human.

Ms. Lazan described the yellow star she was forced to wear. “It was just another way to denigrate us, to isolate us, and to set us apart from the rest of society. Each and every one of us must do everything in our power to prevent such hatred, such destruction and such terror from recurring.

We can begin by having love, respect and compassion towards one another, regardless of their religious belief, color of skin or national origin. Let us all, each and every one of us, have this compassion and respect. It is such a simple message and yet so difficult to achieve.”

There is very little we can do against the negativity in our world, but how we treat, behave, and reach out to one another — that is entirely up to us.”

It’s been eight decades now since the Nazi camps were liberated and the world learned the horrifying truth. A lifetime on, the Holocaust remains one of the most powerful warnings of the darkness humans are capable of. Of where hate can lead. Of what happens if good people do nothing.

But the Holocaust also offers a lesson. For every story of despicable evil, there is a story of strength, survival, and sacrifice. One that shows what humans can do when we act out of love and compassion. When we reject fear and hatred. When we remember the light we all carry.

When the world learned of the Holocaust, we made a pledge: Never Again. The United Nations works to uphold that pledge. That’s why, every 27 January, the UN officially commemorates the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the millions of other victims of Nazi persecution- a remembrance we carry forward every day.

But we can’t take it for granted. Never Again offers no warnings, no lessons, if the Holocaust is forgotten. If it is denied or distorted. If it is explained away. The survivors won’t be with us forever. This responsibility belongs to all of us — governments, institutions, communities and individuals alike.

We must act now. Everywhere, hate is burning in a five-alarm fire. Everywhere, poisonous lies are fanning the flames of antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, and xenophobia. Pitting neighbor against neighbor, dehumanizing people because of who they are.

We saw it in the horrific terror attack of October 7, in the taking of hostages, in the deadly attack on Bondi beach in December, and in the many acts of hatred targeting Jews around the world in recent years. And we see it wherever, whenever human beings choose violence over peace.

“Anyone who thinks that hatred of Jews stops at Jews is mistaken,” survivor Sara Weinstein said from the General Assembly podium.

“Hatred never knows bounds. Today it is antisemitism— tomorrow it will be against different people, a different religion, a different race … I call on every person from here:

“Stand up to hatred, don’t be silent.”

All the victims of the Holocaust I have had the privilege to meet have told me the same thing: antisemitism and hatred have not gone away. It lurks and can fuel fascism again. I am proud to lead the United Nations Outreach program on the Holocaust to help ensure its evil history is not distorted or denied. When we look back, we also face the threats of the present. We must keep our never again promise by fighting for peace, justice, and human rights.

This pledge calls us to fight back against hate. Holocaust survivors remind us we have the means to do so. To stand up, with strength and courage, for our fellow humans. We only have to remember the light in all of us.

Every year at the United Nations, we mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists — a solemn reminder that freedom of the press remains under siege across the world.

This year, I was honored to speak at a high-level event hosted by Greece, France, and Lithuania, where diplomats, journalists, and advocates gathered to call out the alarming rise in threats to journalists — and to demand accountability for those who target them.

I began my remarks with the haunting words of Filipino investigative journalist Patricia Evangelista, who recently said:

“The dead do not publish. The dead do not speak. Dead journalists tell no stories.”

At the Frankfurt Book Fair, instead of talking about her new book, Evangelista chose to honor Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza while reporting — journalists who had written their own obituaries in advance; journalists reporting through hunger; one who was warned by a caring old woman: “This camera is going to kill you.”

Those same dangers stalk reporters covering the horrors of Sudan and Ukraine, where the press vest — once a symbol of protection — has instead become a target.

The Deadliest Time to Be a Journalist

This is the deadliest period on record for journalists.
In the past decade, more than 1,000 reporters have been killed — in war zones and beyond.

In Gaza alone, the UN Human Rights Office has documented 252 journalists killed since October 7, 2023.

Even more chilling: according to UNESCO, nearly nine out of ten of these killings remain unresolved. The killers walk free.

This is not just a tragedy. It is a signal — a warning — that the world is failing to protect the people who bring truth to light.

The Digital Frontline

Threats to journalists don’t only play out in war.
Around the world, we’re witnessing a systematic campaign to shrink democratic space — and silence the media.

Authoritarian regimes and political actors are weaponizing digital tools to intimidate and silence critical voices.
The digital era, once heralded as a force for transparency, has instead created a new battlefield — especially for women journalists.

A UNESCO study found that 73% of women journalists have faced online harassment.

They are bombarded with death threats, rape threats, and doctored images meant to humiliate and discredit.
Malicious lies spread to tarnish reputations and undermine credibility.

And the danger doesn’t stop online. Nearly one in four women journalists who face digital abuse have also suffered physical attacks in the real world — attacks directly linked to the harassment they endured online.

As one reporter told me, “I may not be in a war zone, but my phone is a battlefield.”

Why This Matters

Protecting journalists isn’t a niche cause. It is the foundation of democracy.

Journalists should never be targets — not in wars, not online, not anywhere.
Their safety is essential for transparency, accountability, and informed public debate.

States must act — through prevention, protection, and prosecution — as outlined in the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity.

When journalists are silenced, corruption thrives. When truth is suppressed, democracy dies.

We need journalists for facts.
The public needs journalism it can trust.
And societies need trust to sustain a shared reality — without which we cannot face our greatest challenges, from war to climate change to the erosion of democracy itself.

Because in the end, the dead do not publish.
And if journalists can’t speak truth to power, none of us will have a voice at all.

They trade safety for danger. Comfort for hardship. Family time for sleepless nights in the world’s most dangerous places. Aid workers make these sacrifices not for glory, but for humanity — to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and save lives in the middle of war and disaster.

Yet today, those very humanitarians are under assault like never before. Attacked, targeted, killed — at a record pace. And as if violence were not enough, funding cuts are forcing them to choose who lives and who dies.

This World Humanitarian Day, the United Nations is not only honoring their courage. We are sounding the alarm. Because protecting aid workers means protecting the millions of people whose survival depends on them.

This year feels especially sad. Aid workers are under attack like never before. 2025 is already on track to break last year’s record 344 deaths. This, as funding cuts force them to make the most excruciating life or death decisions.

The trends are not new. Violence against aid workers has seen a dramatic spike in recent years. Kidnappings, assaults, and targeted killings have soared. Attacks on schools and hospitals kill countless civilians, including humanitarians along with the people they serve.

The UN will always remain crystal clear: Every single civilian death is a grave violation of international humanitarian law, the law that protects civilians during wartime.

Yet wherever my colleagues look, from Sudan to Gaza, Syria to Myanmar, they see new red lines being crossed. In Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories alone, 408 aid workers, including more than 280 UN staff, have been killed since the war began on 7 October 2023.

But they remain undeterred. I was moved to see the release of a new documentary by UNICEF about their mission to vaccinate 600,000 children against polio in the midst of the war in Gaza.

Funding problems, too, are not new. But this year’s drastic cuts are different, starving the entire global humanitarian system of oxygen. UN agencies, along with our network of partner humanitarian and development NGOs, have been left reeling.

The figures make for sobering reading. This year, the UN and its partners are striving to help 190 million people with lifesaving aid. That in itself represents less than two thirds of the staggering 305 million people in need of lifesaving assistance around the world this year.

At the end of last year, the UN asked for US $46 billion to help those people. To put that in context, that is just 1% of what the world spent on defence in 2024. But as of August, less than 17% had been received — an eye-watering 40% drop compared to the same time last year.

This has meant a heartbreaking few months. Dedicated humanitarians dismissed in their thousands, programs cut, whole operations shuttered. But that too has been nothing compared with the catastrophic suffering of the people the humanitarian system is there to serve.

To highlight some situations, in Africa alone: War-torn Sudan is experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis on earth. Yet cuts are closing community kitchens feeding thousands, while there are no funds left to support the displaced, leaving border areas dangerously overcrowded.

Nearby Uganda is already hosting more than 1.7 million refugees fleeing horrific violence in the region. But there too, cuts are biting. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is being forced to cut cash assistance by more than two thirds to people who have lost absolutely everything.

In Nigeria, more than 30 million people face severe food insecurity. That’s the population of Texas, going to bed hungry most nights. Yet the funding crisis is forcing the World Food Program to close 150 clinics, ending lifesaving treatment for 300,000 malnourished children.

This is just a fraction of the programs hit by the cuts. Broadly, they mean the UN has to pare back its humanitarian work. At the same time we are striving to make the global humanitarian effort as efficient, accountable and innovative as possible, while continuing to save lives.

We have our sights fixed firmly on a stronger UN that delivers for people at a time when we are called to achieve more with less. At the same time are urging all donors to reconsider their contribution to our lifesaving work.

In a few weeks, world leaders will gather once again in New York for the opening of the 80th United Nations General Assembly. My colleagues and I will be making the case for a more humane world, demanding urgent protection for those who risk everything to serve humanity.

You too can help us raise the alarm. Support our #ActForHumanity campaign and demand protection for aid workers and all civilians.

The UN is calling on all States, parties to armed conflict, and the wider international community:

End attacks on civilians and take active steps to protect them — and the critical civilian infrastructure they rely on.

Protect all aid workers, including local and national actors, and their premises and assets and facilitate their work

Hold perpetrators to account. Those who commit violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) cannot go unpunished.

They Save Lives. Now Their Own Are on the Line was originally published in We The Peoples on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Raging conflicts, climate chaos, soaring inequality — our world is facing a daunting list of global risks. But how prepared are we to meet them? That’s the subject of a new landmark UN report that offers an urgent call to action.

As things stand, the world is not prepared for many of the challenges we face. That’s the key finding of the first-ever UN Global Risk Report — the results drawn from a survey of over 1,100 leaders from government, industry, civil society and academia in 136 countries.

Respondents were first asked to rank 28 global risks in order of importance, then to rate the international community’s readiness to respond. The confluence of these two factors gives us “global vulnerabilities” — the most important risks that we are least prepared for.

The number one Global Vulnerability? Mis- and disinformation, an extremely complex challenge on which my team and I have long been focused. This top concern was shared across the world, but especially in Europe, the Americas, the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The problem is as urgent as it is thorny. Of all global vulnerabilities highlighted — cybersecurity, pandemics, AI, mass migration — 80% of respondents picked out mis- and disinformation as a dangerous risk that was already happening.

Not only that, these risks are interconnected. Mis- and disinformation does not stand alone. We already know that it is one area of risk in the information environment driving violence, undermining human rights and distracting from urgently needed climate action. In short, it isn’t something we can ignore.

The UN has long warned about the harms caused by threats to information integrity such as mis- and disinformation. While they aren’t new, they are unprecedented in their current scale and sophistication — and now supercharged by readily available generative AI tools.

It’s clear what we must do to move from risk to resilience: work together, between governments and across sectors. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres has long stressed, global problems require global responses.

The Report concludes with a recommendation from the Secretary-General to immediately create a task team to strengthen the United Nations System’s capacity to address risks in the information ecosystem. The team, building on work that my Department has already begun across the UN to focus on the effects of mis- and disinformation on United Nations mandate delivery, including through research, risk assessment and response strategies.

It will also build on a powerful new initiative that we brought out last summer, the United Nations Global Principles for Information Integrity. These Principles offer guidance to all actors that can help create healthier information environments whilst upholding essential human rights.

The Principles urge action from key stakeholders, governments, tech companies, AI developers and advertisers, and also include recommendations for researchers, academics and media. They are acting as an important beacon for change.

Take climate action for example. Together with Brazil and UNESCO, the UN has launched a closely related initiative tackling climate disinformation. By building global networks, we are researching, rating risk, and mounting a robust response to the narratives of inaction.

One thing is clear when looking out on this landscape of global risk: ultimate responsibility lies with today’s leaders. They face a stark choice: breakdown, or break through to a better tomorrow — one in which we all live in peace, dignity and equality on a healthy planet.

“It has been said that the United Nations was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.” That quote, now famous, first appeared in a speech by the second UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld, in 1954. Put simply, it was a speech pleading for the international community to keep striving for peace. Messy, difficult, complicated peace.

The task back then was clear: Avoid a third world war. Less than ten years earlier, still reeling from the horrors of the second, the Holocaust, and the nuclear attacks on Japan, leaders came together to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” as the UN Charter pledges. Today, we mark 80 years since the signing of that document, on June 26, 1945.

Eight decades on, it’s worth reminding ourselves: We can draw a direct line between the creation of the United Nations and the prevention of a third world war. And while the UN also represents humanity’s highest aspirations — human rights, equality, dignity, justice, and the rule of law — it was not created to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.

The UN’s vision is of all humanity living in peace, dignity and equality on a healthy planet. A decade ago, in 2015, the world agreed on a roadmap to achieve that vision. We call them the Sustainable Development Goals. When we talk about sustainable development, we mean that no one on our wealthy planet should go hungry. No person should die from lack of clean drinking water, or medicine. No child should miss out on learning.

It is a vision shared by the vast majority of people on earth.

Imagine for a minute that you were on a ship and you saw someone fall overboard. The vast majority of us would throw a rope to save that person from drowning. The United Nations is the mechanism we made to throw that rope. Pulling vulnerable people out of misery. Stabilizing nations in crisis. Preventing wars. Stopping the spread of disease.

Thanks to the generosity of key donors, the UN and its humanitarian partners threw a life-saving rope to 128 million people in 2023. This work is done via our UN agencies, supporting tens of millions of people, year, by year, by year, for the past 80 years.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, helps 117 million fleeing war, famine and persecution.

WFP, the UN World Food Programme, feeds 160 million across 120 countries and territories.

UNICEF, the UN children’s fund, has saved more than 150 million lives over five decades with childhood vaccines.

WHO, the World Health Organization, and UNAIDs, prevent the spread of deadly diseases such as HIV or Ebola.

This, and much, much more. Yet there’s a serious problem: The needs in our deeply troubled world are looming larger than ever. We have long been urging donors to provide a longer, stronger rope to save more people from drowning.

To get food to those facing acute hunger — more than 250 million last year.

To get help to those impacted by war — a figure that now includes 20% of the world’s children.

To get shelter to those forced out of their homes — now more than 122 million, almost double what it was 10 years ago.

But instead the rope is fraying. For years, the UN has been facing a liquidity crisis due to the fact that some Member States do not pay their dues in full, or on time. Now things are about to get dramatically worse. Rather than reinforce the ties that bind humanity together, some donors are wielding a knife. UN agencies, along with many humanitarian and development NGOs, are reeling from severe and drastic cuts. We are profoundly alarmed. These cuts are already having very concrete and very dramatic consequences for the people we serve.

In Afghanistan, more than 9 million people are now missing out on health and protection services.

In north-east Syria, 2.5 million people in need of help are being left to suffer.

In war-torn Ukraine, 1 million people risk having their cash assistance suspended.

In Bangladesh, desperate people living in Cox’s Bazaar, the world’s largest refugee camp, are facing reduced food rations.

And in South Sudan, funding has run out for programmes to support people who have fled the conflict in neighbouring Sudan, leaving border areas dangerously overcrowded.

All this, as the climate emergency is being left to spiral beyond human control, threatening the health, peace, and future survival of everyone on earth. A better world is possible. We are urging all donors to reconsider their contribution to our life-saving work. At the same time we are striving to make the global humanitarian effort as efficient, accountable and innovative as possible, while continuing to save lives.

You may have seen headlines about our UN80 Initiative. This is an ambitious and far-reaching undertaking to ensure that the UN is fit for purpose, and to support the multilateralism of the future by making improvements in the way we work.

Last year, world leaders agreed on three historic documents: The Pact for the Future, and its annexes, the Global Digital Compact, and the Declaration for Future Generations. Adopted by all Member States, they lay out a blueprint for a better world and a reformed United Nations.

Now we are calling on Member States to make good on those promises. Help update and reform our structures, and deliver what our world so desperately needs: A global emergency responder for the most vulnerable, a forum to resolve disputes peacefully, a system of rules, norms and values that we all agree on, and a comprehensive plan to curb global temperature rise and maintain humanity’s only home.

Our world is facing challenges on every front. Since the United Nations reflects that world in all its aspects, we feel it in all our work. We are pursuing reforms at a time when geopolitical divisions and mistrust are blocking international cooperation and the multilateral system itself.

We are urgently seeking ways to ensure that we keep our most essential promises. To do what we can to save lives, to remain steadfast and committed to security and stability, and to hold the line against the backsliding on human rights.

The UN is calling on all donors to help humanity rise to the challenge of this moment: Defend our common values. Fund our programs. Rally behind the rule of law.

UN budgets are so much more than numbers on a balance sheet, they are a matter of life and death for millions around the world. UN ambitions are so much more than dry reports and targets, they are the sum of our highest humanitarian values.

Those values, laid down 80 years ago in the UN Charter, are based on the core principles that we will never abandon — for the good of all humanity, and those yet to come.

Eight Decades On, the UN Charter Is Still Saving Us From Hell was originally published in We The Peoples on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meta’s recent announcement that it will roll back trust and safety measures will cause untold harm to our world.

Hateful content is likely to surge, prompting spikes in on- and offline harassment and violence. Far from allowing “more speech,” this will in effect silence speech and participation, shrink civic spaces and narrow access to information. Social media users will find it harder to access accurate, fact-based information.

Removing trained, nonpartisan and ethical fact-checkers and leaving it to users to police is haphazard, often slow and unreliable.

Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize winner said Meta’s decision meant “extremely dangerous times ahead” for journalism, democracy and social media users. She added that it could lead to “a world without facts.”

The claim that efforts to create safer online spaces amount to censorship is as inaccurate as it is dangerous. Unregulated information spaces allow people to be silenced and targeted, often the most vulnerable and marginalized.

This undermines freedom of expression, which thrives when diverse voices are heard, not when hate or disinformation are amplified.

We are extremely concerned about the impacts of disinformation and hate campaigns spreading in already volatile situations. We’ve seen the potential for horrific impacts in conflicts such as in Myanmar and Ethiopia among others. Mark Zuckerberg called what happened in Myanmar a “terrible tragedy” and said his platform “needed to do more.”

Where has that sentiment gone now? Instead, we’re seeing a new, combative rhetoric, taking sweeping aim at efforts around the world to strengthen the integrity of our information ecosystem.

But digital trust and safety are not optional, nice-to-haves. They are fundamental to upholding human rights , and for trust in science and institutions.

Writing on LinkedIn, UN Human Rights Chief, Volker Türk said:

Social media shapes society and has immense potential to enhance lives and connect us. It also has demonstrated ability to fuel conflict, incite hatred and threaten safety. When at its best, social media is a place where people with divergent views can exchange, if not always agree.

When we call efforts to create safe online spaces ‘censorship’, we ignore the fact that unregulated space means some people are silenced — in particular those whose voices are often marginalised. At the same time, allowing hatred online limits free expression and may result in real world harms.

Freedom of expression thrives when diverse voices can be heard without enabling harm or disinformation.

We do not yet have the full picture of what these changes mean globally but we will not be standing idly by. We will continue to speak out about the impacts on vulnerable and marginalized communities around the world that were already under-served by Meta’s trust and safety resources.

We will continue to advocate for a more humane internet. One that allows people everywhere to navigate online spaces safely, express themselves freely without fear of attack, and access a range of views and information sources.

We will respond to the expected increase in hate and disinformation narratives directed at the UN and its priority issues, and continue to harness coalitions, build capacity and carry out mitigation measures.

We will continue to advocate for independent media acting ethically in the public interest, recognizing that a free and pluralistic media landscape is vital to the health of our information ecosystem.

And we will continue to advocate for healthier advertising practices, raising awareness of the potential brand safety concerns for advertisers where their ads are increasingly likely to appear alongside hate speech and disinformation.

One thing is clear. The international community is demanding better from big tech. As the UN Secretary-General has repeatedly said, tech companies must take responsibility for the damage caused by their products and take measures to uphold human rights. There can be no exceptions.

META move empowers purveyors of disinformation and hate was originally published in We The Peoples on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This is an emotional, hopeful moment for all Syrians. For me too.

Over they years, during my work at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, I met so many remarkable refugees who fled the brutal Assad dictatorship to save themselves. They suffered in exile, safe, but unsettled, longing for for home. Many risked their lives to reach Europe.

I wrote a book about one courageous young woman, Doaa al Zamel, called A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea.

Doaa was a Syrian refugee, driven from her home by the brutal war.

She and her fiancé, Bassem, couldn’t see a future where they were living in limbo.

So, they put their lives in the hands of smugglers. And traveled across the sea to Europe.

Together with 500 others, they crammed onto an old fishing boat.

After four days at sea, it sank. Many were killed instantly, while others hung onto wreckage to stay alive.

After two days, Bassem lost his fight with the sea, leaving Doaa, who couldn’t swim, draped on a child’s floating ring, looking after two babies.

She sang and prayed with them, as they drifted another two days at sea.

Until at last they were rescued from their ordeal.

Of 500 people, only Doaa and a handful of others survived, including a baby girl she saved.

Doaa’s extraordinary survival story captured the world’s imagination. It is a tale of remarkable courage, of resilience, of not giving up hope.

Today, that powerful hope has finally turned into a reality for Doaa.

She wrote me this to me today from her exile in Sweden: “this is a moment like a dream… an indescribable feeling. I hope that peace will prevail in Syria and that it will return safe. All Syrians were waiting for this moment.”

I felt so happy for Doaa and for her family and all the Syrians who now have hope for the future. We at the United Nations are committed to helping build a country of reconciliation, justice, freedom, inclusivity and prosperity for everyone. And when and if the conditions arise, to help the millions of refugees wishing to return home, to do so in safety and in dignity.

Doaa’s Hope for Syria was originally published in We The Peoples on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Violence against women is as backward as it is self-destructive. On last week’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, we pledged to consign it to the past, where it belongs.

Working for the UN, I’ve spoken with too many survivors to count: courageous women willing to share their harrowing stories of rape during wartime. Refugees who, on top of losing homes and loved ones, had suffered through one of history’s greatest silences.

Violence against women — the most pervasive breach of human rights worldwide — comes in many forms. Child marriage, female genital mutilation, and, at its most brutal, femicide.

Globally, the statistics are harrowing: In 2023, a woman was killed by an intimate partner or family member every 10 minutes.

It isn’t just physical violence. Women are also subjected to online misogynistic hate — particularly those in the public eye. Whenever women enter politics, journalism, or become active for a cause, they now have to brace for an avalanche of abuse.

I’ve met many survivors in my professional life. Female friends, colleagues and partners bombarded with rape and death threats intended to intimidate them and push them out of the public sphere.

Hateful, violent and intimidating messages come at these women from every direction. From anonymous trolls, but also from sources, public figures, and even colleagues. Spoof accounts posting faked images, video, or audio clips.

Malicious lies that seek to sully reputations and undermine credibility. Deep fakes, showing mocked up scenes of sexual violence. Hacking, doxxing, surveillance, and interception. The list goes on. Too often, this violence spills over into the real world.

Our toxic information ecosystems are partly to blame. Social media platforms run by AI powered algorithms designed to boost engagement tend to elevate polarizing and extreme content — including violent and misogynistic abuse.

Launched this summer, the UN Global Principles on Information Integrity aim to counter online abuse, make the digital space safer and more humane, and limit the impact of gendered disinformation.

The Principles present a vision of a healthier information landscape. One in which damaging content is no longer promoted, and disinformation — including gendered disinformation — is no longer monetized.

We’re also urging platforms to consistently apply resources for trust and safety around the world, and for governments to boost digital literacy and push for user empowerment.

We’ve a long way to go. In recent years we’ve seen an intense global backlash against gender equality and women’s rights, and the normalization of violence against women in all spaces.

The good news is that, however harrowing the statistics, violence against women is preventable — and we have more evidence than ever before about what works.

The UN wants change. We’re urging governments to do more to protect women from online and offline violence. And we’ve seen significant progress, with 104 countries having adopted comprehensive laws to address domestic violence.

There’s still a mountain to climb. We need justice and policing to serve women better — and for the international community to effectively punish widespread and systemic rape in conflict — a recognized war crime.

Attitudes must change, too, if we are to address the root causes of violence against women and girls. We all have a role to play here, in empowering women, and in involving men in speaking out against sexual violence.

There are practical steps you can take. If someone discloses to you that they are experiencing abuse, you can help by:

Listening without judgment.

Letting them know you believe them.

Asking what more you can do to help.

Supporting their decisions.

In your wider network, you can help by raising your voice. Take a stand, advocate for survivors, and educate others about the importance of ending violence against women and girls.

Together, we can come together to challenge harmful norms and support survivors. Together, we can end violence against women.

See UN Women’s Unite to End Violence Against Women campaign for resources on how to spot and how to help in cases of violence, such as relationship abuse. UN partners Lila.help and No More Global Directory also offer lists of domestic and sexual violence helplines and services from across the world.

Breaking the Cycle: Why Ending Violence Against Women Must Start Now was originally published in We The Peoples on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.