South Africa’s G20 presidency shouldn’t drop the baton passed by Brazil on this crucial issue that underpins good governance.
As leaders of the world’s major economies prepare for the November G20 Johannesburg Summit, champions of South Africa’s journalism industry are working to ensure that information integrity and media freedom are not overlooked.
The two issues are inextricably linked, argue Media Monitoring Africa and the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF). Together, the two organisations are spearheading Media20 (M20) in the lead-up to the G20 talks, to highlight the issues.
The United Nations (UN) Global Principles for Information Integrity put freedom of expression, accuracy, reliability and an independent, free and pluralistic media centre-stage.
M20 highlights the blind spots in the new artificial intelligence (AI) landscape – especially how citizens receive news and fact-based information online. It warns that ‘current trends foresee an increase in low-quality and false information, with increasing AI “hallucinations” and deceptive deepfakes being produced and circulated.’
Traditional journalism is considered an antidote to such falsehoods as ‘it debunks lies and exposes information operations,’ say M20 campaigners. It also ‘contributes reliable news and informed comment into the public information ecosystem.’ Yet traditional journalism is under threat, with newsrooms struggling to compete with digital platforms due to a complex mix of business, technical and content challenges.
M20 is timely considering that many G20 countries exhibit reduced media freedom, driven by political and economic factors. The recent World Press Freedom Index puts major democracies, including the United States (US) and India, in the spotlight (see graph).
The defunding of media outlets and newsroom closures such as that of Voice of America, are a significant concern, given their role in highlighting international issues to a broad audience and providing a bulwark against ‘fake news.’
Furthermore, the index’s authors say the US is ‘experiencing its first significant and prolonged decline in press freedom in modern history,’ with more than double the number of journalists arrested in the US than a year ago.
Likewise, the index reveals that 80% of the African news networks surveyed have seen their economic indicators ‘drop.’ This means their subsidies and advertising revenues have declined in the past year, leading some to ‘self-censor’ for fear of future funding cuts. That doesn’t bode well for M20’s efforts to campaign on media freedom and integrity at the G20 meetings.
At last year’s G20 in Brazil, information integrity was prioritised, culminating in a ministerial declaration that without information integrity, trust in public institutions and democracy ‘may be affected with negative effects on social cohesion and economic prosperity’ and human rights. Many saw it as a bold move.
In contrast, under South Africa’s G20 presidency, the issue has been somewhat relegated, struggling to get onto the agenda. M20 campaigners note just one ‘high-level presentation’ on AI-generated deepfakes at a workshop in June as part of the G20 Digital Economy Working Group.
‘We do have good relations with the South African government,’ says Media Monitoring Africa Director William Bird, noting that Pretoria welcomed the M20 campaign. But ultimately ‘we want to get information integrity formalised into one of the G20 tracks in future.’ That might be a big ask given the range of economic- and development-focused topics the G20 is currently tasked with.
However, M20 has found an ally in the French mission to South Africa. Ambassador David Martinon recently hosted a dialogue with other African media policy organisations to ‘place media sustainability, independent journalism, and information integrity on the global agenda.’ While M20 will be confined to the fringes of the heads of state meeting, the French delegation could be a useful vehicle to amplify the issue, albeit informally.
In an era of what is often dubbed ‘fake news’ – but which experts prefer to call ‘coordinated inauthentic behaviour’ – the language of the information landscape has adopted a more considered definition. It highlights not only inauthentic content but also how algorithms, hate speech and AI-generated deepfakes can pollute the information space, tinkering with content and how it’s delivered to us.
Bird’s efforts to raise the profile of this issue at the Johannesburg G20 are something of a place holder – with an eye on next year’s summit in the US. ‘This is a way of providing a base so that work in the US can be built on this,’ he says, fearful that under a US G20 presidency, the issue could be downplayed or ignored.
He says the US administration’s record on supporting independent media, including executive orders related to funding public service broadcasters, does not inspire confidence.
Although this year’s G20 has no working group dedicated to information integrity, the digital economy working group touches on digital innovation and equitable, inclusive and just artificial intelligence.
Of course, the G20 is not the only forum to raise such issues. An inquiry by South Africa’s Competition Commission identifies generative AI, digital advertising, social media and search engines as challenges to media viability in terms of running media companies and delivering public interest journalism.
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Research ICT Africa provided expert testimony to that inquiry, highlighting the lack of a level playing field, which disadvantages the global south. It speaks of big platforms like Meta, X and TikTok having ‘algorithm designs that favour foreign media over local sources, subscription models over free content, and YouTube over South African broadcasters.’
This undermines local journalism and privileges values and priorities that favour the global north over the global south. ‘What we are trying to do is future-proof our journalism,’ argues SANEF’s Izak Minnaar. ‘We want global media development issues to focus on Africa and the global south.’
The Competition Commission’s inquiry provides leverage for some issues raised by M20. Those behind the campaign want to highlight the journalism aspect of the new media landscape – and not limit it to issues of business equity and media viability.
An M20 information integrity summit is scheduled for September in Johannesburg, and more analysis is underway on gender-based violence, online safety and child protection, and journalism as a public good.
In this context, information integrity will no doubt become an essential backdrop to the G20 Summit – one of the most important annual events on the geopolitical agenda.
Karen Allen, Consultant, ISS Pretoria