Patricia Peña Miranda, an academic at Universidad de Chile and co-researcher of the Fondecyt project on regulation and convergence in communications, is one of the 9 experts invited to join the Advisory Commission to address the phenomenon of disinformation. The group of professionals from various areas of knowledge is coordinated by the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation..
After working for a month and a half, the Commission delivered its first reporta state of the art of the discussion on disinformation in Chile and the region.
The document includes a framework of definitions, as well as a review of reports and recommendations on the matter by international organizations such as the UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression (2021) The OECD Disinformation Hub (2023) , the European Union (2022), UNESCO (2023), etc.
The text submitted to Minister of Science Aisén Etcheverry concludes that initial studies show as a trend that “fake information disseminates faster and reaches more users in Chile than real information on Twitter and Facebook. Instagram, however, seems less affected by this phenomenon, probably due to the more visual nature of this platform.”
In this regard, Peña stated:
“The creation of this commission has provided an opportunity to address and examine, within the Chilean context, an issue that has become more complex in terms of the ways and formats in which it occurs, and also in terms of its scope and impact on society and democracy, particularly on societies where information access and consumption depends on the use of social media platforms and becomes widespread through it.” In addition, the academic noted that “the contributions we are making as a commission in this first report gather the perspective and experience of the academia and civil society, and they have undoubtedly allowed us to enrich discussions in order to present this first diagnostic approach.”
A second report with public policy recommendations will be published in November of this year.
Human Rights and Technology
Our co-researcher was also a part of RightsCon.org 2023, an international conference on human rights and technology held in Costa Rica in June.
The event led by the US non-profit organization Access Now, gathers more than one thousand participants every year, who work on these topics from various areas of the civil society.
On this occasion, it was held in Latin America for the first time. It was also in a hybrid in-person format.
You can hear more about what was discussed and debated in RightsCon 2023 on the podcast “Oír para Creer” of Radio JGM - Universidad de Chile on Spotify.
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