Press Council’s Izak Minnaar takes part in global summit
Press Council member Izak Minnaar took his expertise to Dubrovnik in June, where he represented the organisation at a significant international gathering organised by UNESCO and the Croatian Agency for Electronic Media.
Minnaar joined participants from 124 countries, including representatives from 87 national and regional networks of regulators, digital platforms, governments, think tanks, self-regulators, electoral managerial bodies and civil society at the International Conference on ‘Digital Platform Governance: Building a Global Forum of Networks’.
The gathering resulted in the creation of the Global Forum of Regulators, which will be hosted by UNESCO to coordinate an international response from this sector to the challenges posed by digital platforms. The emphasis is on promoting human rights principles within the wider information ecosystem.
Minnaar’s involvement is part of the Press Council’s efforts to participate in content regulation policy initiatives and discussions at an international level. Among the most important of these this year was the creation of the Network of Independent Media Councils in Africa (NIMCA) which took place at the African Media Councils meeting hosted by the Council in Cape Town in May.
UNESCO is actively engaged with national and international networks of regulators to define a set of duties, responsibilities, and roles for States, digital platforms, intergovernmental organisations, civil society, media, academic and technical communities, and other stakeholders to create an environment where freedom of expression and information are at the core of digital platform governance processes.
In 2022, as part of its broader strategy to counter hate speech online, UNESCO launched the Internet for Trust initiative. It published the Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms in November 2023, the aim being to safeguard freedom of expression and the right to information while dealing with dis- and misinformation, hate speech, and conspiracy theories online.
