The United Nations upgrades the censorship industrial complex
Hudson Crozier
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In recent years, the public has learned that journalists, federal agencies in multiple Western countries, academics, social media platforms, and shadowy nonprofit groups have all been involved in policing what a conglomerate of elites consider to be harmful speech online. Now, the United Nations has joined the party by launching its iVerify platform, an “automated fact-checking tool.”
The United Nations Development Programme developed the tool in concert with Meta, journalistic organizations, and left-wing nonprofit groups, including one funded by billionaire George Soros. The U.N. boasts that iVerify will ensure seamless collaboration between “media, government, [and the] private sector.”
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“Misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech threaten peace and security, disproportionately affecting those who are already vulnerable,” the UNDP says.
While we can only guess what speech our digital overlords will deem problematic in the coming months, we have a good idea of where their values lie. One page on its website decries “homophobic and transphobic attitudes” in certain countries and explains the Marxist concept of an “intersection” of oppression between different ethnic and sexual minorities, complete with a video promoting a drag queen. It has also been clamoring for “gender identity” to be accommodated by public institutions for years.
An “independent expert” from the U.N. even said last year he was “extremely concerned” that conservative states in America are restricting children’s access to sex change procedures.
The U.N. vaguely defines “hate speech” as “any kind of communication in speech, writing or behavior, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, gender or other identity factor.” This redundant description doesn’t define what “pejorative or discriminatory” are, leaving it up to the censors to decide.
In the most hilarious attempt at gaslighting, the U.N. promises that iVerify “will not be misused in ways that would undermine freedom of expression, freedom of the press or political and social rights.” Instead, the U.N. argues, it will “establish whether [content] is fact-checkable and/or constitutes hate speech, as opposed to the expression of an opinion.” In other words, you can have opinions, just not ones the thought police don’t like.
As far as its grasp on “misinformation” and “disinformation” goes, the U.N. apparently has no problem partnering with Big Tech platforms that have admittedly suppressed true information, sometimes purposefully, on matters such as political scandals and COVID-19 vaccines. Employees have also helped government bureaucrats spread their own misinformation, such as the debunked claim from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that a lab leak in China is an “extremely unlikely” theory for the origin of COVID-19.
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Nevertheless, the arrogant elites of the West have brought their Orwellian censorship network to the international level, creating an alarmingly centralized system of thought control. They won’t listen to any statement that conflicts with their vision of the world, and they don’t want anyone else to hear it, either. Instead of being addressed on its merits, transgressive speech will be filed into an automated purging system.
Hudson Crozier is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.