Fighting Disinformation Is Vital To Boost Democracy: UNDP

On Wednesday, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) representative in Honduras Richard Barathe considered that fighting disinformation and guaranteeing press freedom is essential to strengthening national democracy.

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"Recently, the national public debate has been reduced by 10 percent due to the loss of trust in the veracity of the information published in local outlets,” Barathe lamented.

He considered that the main challenge for counteracting this situation is to fight the proliferation of fake news, which spreads six times faster than the real ones on social media.

In November 2021, the UNDP launched with the European Union (EU) support the "Verify Honduras!" online platform to help confirm news veracity during that year’s general elections. “This initiative turned out to be a success,” he applauded.

The United Nations Human Rights Office (UNHR) representative Isabel Albaladejo stressed that other comprehensive measures should be adopted to ensure the truth of the information published in media outlets, which are essential to fight corruption and build public policies.

"Expression freedom can only be guaranteed by boosting press freedom," Albaladejo stressed and advocated for the protection of journalists, recalling that her office recorded attacks on 94 communicators in 2021.

“Society plays a key role in the fight against disinformation because it has the responsibility to demand its right to access information and exercise a social oversight that allows the media to provide that information,” she highlighted.