IAPA logo. Photo: File.
The Inter-American Press Association (SIP) expressed this Monday, June 26, its concern about the decision of the Chilean government to create an official commission to combat disinformation. The initiative, according to the organization, could generate “the temptation to establish censorship mechanisms.”
On June 20, the Official diary Chilean published the decree to create an Advisory Commission against Disinformation within the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation.
The commission will aim to advise the General Secretariat of Government (Segegob). The topics addressed will be disinformation, democratic quality, digital literacy, disinformation on digital platforms and good digital practices. In addition, it will make recommendations on public policies.
The president of the IAPA, Michael Greenspon, said that regardless of how laudable the objectives may seem, “there should be concern when governments get directly involved in the analysis of information, expression, media or journalism.”
What does the commission mean for the SIP
Greenspon, Global Director of Licensing and Innovación de Impresión de The New York Times, added in a statement that commissions, observatories or other forms of government surveillance “always tend to look at reality from ideological perspectives. They advise biased public policies, with negative effects on freedom of expression and of the press.”
For his part, the president of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Carlos Jornet, journalistic director of The voice of the interior of Argentina, said that the organization favors that governments promote digital literacy and that legislators explore the adoption of public policies to combat disinformation.
However, Jornet stressed, “it is very different when the State creates its own commission. He studies and seeks to determine, from his point of view, what is most convenient».
Greenspon and Jornet recalled that both the Chapultepec Declaration and the Salta Declaration leave no loopholes for States to impose requirements, conditions or guidelines on freedom of expression or disinformation.
«The spirit of these documents is to defend the freedom of the press and expression as essential principles of democracy. For this reason, they prescribe that governments should not impose measures, to avoid the temptation of establishing censorship mechanisms.
The authorities of the IAPA, based in Miami (Florida), said that in order to combat disinformation, the Chilean government should encourage measures to support journalism, the media, academia and civil society organizations, “but not get directly involved in the solutions.”
“In this way, the issue will be given greater relevance, so that it is treated with greater openness, diversity and plurality in society.”
how it will form
According to the decree, the Advisory Commission against Disinformation will be made up of two representatives from state universities, two from private schools, one from an institution outside the Metropolitan Region, three members of an NGO, foundation or civil society, related to the subject and a representative from a fact-checking organization.
Among other functions, the agency will submit to the Ministry of Science and the General Secretariat of Government recommendations to adopt public policies, added the IAPA statement. The Inter-American Press Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending and promoting freedom of the press and expression in the Americas.
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