"Issue: The right to truthful information is key to a democratic society and to achieving sustainable development and a more equal world, but A/IS poses risks to this right that must be managed.
## BackgroundSocial media have become the dominant technological infrastructure for the dissemination of information such as news, opinion, advertising, etc., and are currently in the vanguard of the movement toward customized/targeted information based on user profiling that involves significant use of A/IS techniques. Analysis of opinion polls and trends in social networks, blogs, etc., and of the emotional response to news items can be used for the purposes of manipulation, facilitating both the selection of news that guides public opinion in the desired direction and the practice of sensationalism.The "personalization of the consumer experience", that is, the adaptation of articles to the interests, political vision, cultural level, education, and geographic location of the reader, is a new challenge for the journalism profession that expands the possibilities of manipulation.The information infrastructure is currently lacking in transparency, such that it is difficult or impossible to know (except perhaps for the infrastructure operator):
what private information is being collected foruser profiling and by whom,
which groups are targeted and by whom,
what information has been received by any given targeted group,
who financed the creation and dissemination of this information,
the percentage of the information being disseminated by bots, and
who is financing these bots.Many actors have found this opaque infrastructure ideal for spreading politically motivated disinformation, which has a negative effect on the creation of a more equal world, democracy, and the respect for fundamental rights. This disinformation can have tragic consequences. For instance, human rights groups have unearthed evidence that the military authorities of Myanmar used Facebook for inciting hatred against the Rohingya Muslim minority, hatred which facilitated an ethnic cleansing campaign and the murder of up to 50,000 people.14 The UN determined that these actions constituted genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.15ocide Incited on Facebook with Posts from Myanmar’s Military,” The New York Times, Oct. 15
https:// www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/ myanmar-faceboo.k-genocide.html
UK Parliament, House of Commons, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Interim Report, Fifth Report of Session 2017–19UK Parliament, Published on July 29, 2018"p.142-144