The EU is spending another €4 million (just under $4.2 million) on a project it runs together with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), known as Social Media 4 Peace (SM4P).
Those targeted by this latest contribution from Brussels are Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, and South Africa as newly included countries, whereas what’s already been achieved in Indonesia and Kenya will be “reinforced,” the UN said.
Others that have been a part of the scheme, which critics consider a censorship initiative, are Bosnia and Herzegovina and Colombia. The EU has already given €4 million to SM4P in 2021, when it launched.
According to the EU’s SM4P page, the project’s purpose is to deal with “potentially harmful online content – in particular hate speech.” Now UNESCO announced the latest contribution saying that will help SM4P’s mission to address harmful content in “conflict-prone and polarized” societies.
And the UN agency promises to protect free speech and rights – “of the most vulnerable and marginalized communities.”
Other than the dystopian-sounding declaration of being there to counter “potentially harmful content,” SM4P raises eyebrows for activities such as contributing to the “shaping” of the Global Forum of Networks.
The burgeoning EU-UN partnership to tackle “disinformation and hate speech globally” has also contributed to what is referred to as global policy discussions on digital platform governance.
In the UN’s system of “nesting dolls of censorship projects,” the Global Forum of Networks is set up to allow international regulators to collaborate and implement UNESCO’s Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms – the result of the said “discussions” – and what SM4P will be focused on until 2027.
The Guidelines’ About page states that this initiative’s aim is to “deal with the problems of dis- and misinformation and hate speech online.”
Then there’s the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 goals – including Sustainable Development Goal Target 16.9 (“legal identity for all, including birth registration, by 2030”), which pushes for digital ID as a way to participate in the digital economy.
That is another goal that SM4P will contribute to, according to the EU page about the project.
In announcing EU’s latest €4 million contribution, UNESCO said that SM4P already has more than 80 partners in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Indonesia, and Kenya – but that its influence in “fostering multistakeholder collaboration and strengthening resilience against online harm” extends “beyond target countries.”
