A Russian representative to the United Nations has urged member states to create a joint mechanism for combating “fake news,” decrying independent efforts aimed at eradicating online disinformation as legalized censorship.
Maxim Buyakevich, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s directorate for international information problems, made the plea while speaking Tuesday at the 40th session of the U.N. Committee on Information in New York City.
“It is clear that a significant challenge to the global community is coming not only from fake news, as they are, but the attempts by some states to use fake news for their own political self-serving needs and the efforts to control their national informational space and to legalize censorship,” Mr. Buyakevich said. “This is clearly unacceptable as the impartiality of journalism is a cornerstone of civil society, as is equal access to information and freedom of expression.”
The term “fake news” emerged during the 2016 U.S. presidential race to describe misleading and untrue purported news articles appearing on social networking platforms including Facebook and Twitter, and federal investigators have since determined that Russian operatives contributed to that confusion by purposely creating and propagating bogus stories through the internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based “troll farm” accused of conducting its activities in tandem with a state-sponsored attempt to meddle in the election.
“Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations — such as cyber activity — with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries and paid social media users or ’trolls,’” the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence previously concluded.
Last month, meanwhile, Malaysia passed a first-of-its-kind law that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment for anyone caught publishing or circulating “news, information, data and reports which is or are wholly or partly false.”
“The public wants a law to protect Malaysians from fake news,” Salleh Said Keruak, the Malaysian minister of communications and multimedia, said last month. “If you are a victim of something that’s viral but fake, your life is ruined.”
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