Statement on behalf of the Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, at the Committee on Information, 47th Session, General Debate
New York, 28 April 2025
Mr. Chair, Excellencies, Distinguished delegates!
I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. We also align ourselves with the statement delivered by the European Union.
At the outset, allow us to congratulate Estonia as the new chair of the Committee on Information and all vice-chairs with assuming their respective posts. Latvia was glad to make its contribution over last two years as the vice chair and will continue to constructively work as a member of the Committee.
Mr. Chair,
Let me also extend our gratitude to the Department of Global Communications and Under-Secretary General Melissa Fleming for being a beacon of truth in these challenging times. The work of the department is more essential than ever in providing precise, fact-based information, supporting independent media around the world, conducting outreach activities and offering tools to address the issue of information integrity. We welcome the department’s efforts to foster system-wide coherence, multilingual outreach, and partnerships with civil society.
We would like to commend the department for its work on crafting Global Principles on Information Integrity. As part of implementation, we would encourage to invest in promoting multistakeholder knowledge sharing and dialogue on addressing the challenges to information integrity posed by AI. We also encourage all UN members to endorse the Principles in order to ensure further implementation.
Mr. Chair,
The Baltic States are working to promote information integrity: an online environment that is free and open, but also secure, and resilient to information manipulation. We chose a whole-of-society approach which consists of four elements. (1) robust inter-institutional coordination and legal basis to counter threats posed by malign foreign information operations to our national security, (2) support for independent and pluralistic media, (3) media literacy initiatives to raise awareness about disinformation online, and (4) engagement with civil society to effectively utilize their analysis and expertise in combating disinformation. All three Baltic States are members of the Media Freedom Coalition and the Freedom Online Coalition—both currently chaired by Estonia—underlining our shared commitment to protecting and promoting media freedom and digital rights globally.
Mr. Chair,
The global community is facing a growing challenge of foreign information manipulation and interference from authoritarian actors. This poses a particular risk in the context of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. We need to work together and become better at detection, response and imposing costs on malign foreign actors interfering in our democracies, including election processes.
Efforts to tackle foreign information manipulation and interference need to go beyond resilience. Foreign information manipulation is a direct threat to national and international security, and to the very foundations of democracy. False narratives fuel conflict, spread hatred and erode trust in institutions. We must ensure robust regulation and countermeasures to prevent malign foreign actors from rewriting and remodelling the information space to serve their own interests. These measures need to be thoroughly considered, well-defined and transparent.
The most effective tool to ensure societal resilience to disinformation is increasing media and information literacy. We urge all actors to continue investing in media and information literacy initiatives, supporting independent media, and using innovative tools (including artificial intelligence) to detect and respond to misinformation in real time.
The Baltic States are working to promote media and information literacy both at the national and international level.
- At home, our Governments have implemented a broad set of measures to promote media literacy, for example, publications on how to recognize and counter the pro-Kremlin disinformation. Our media organisations and civil society are also implementing innovative media literacy projects including outreach to schools, children’s books and media literacy games for young audiences.
- We also actively work on this topic at the international level. For example, Baltic civil society organisations have implemented media literacy projects in the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood and Latvia is working on media literacy initiatives in Tunisia.
Mr. Chair,
While AI offers immense opportunities, the gap between the pace of technological development and the human capacity to adapt and control it poses huge risks. Some of these risks are innate to the AI technology in its current state. AI is increasingly used by malign actors to create and automate the spread of disinformation and amplify their narratives. AI systems are becoming increasingly powerful and broadly available. Some actors use AI to disrupt our societies for geopolitical purposes or for economic gain.
What we need is a human-centric and rights-based national and global multi-stakeholder framework for AI that balance the opportunities, innovation and risks. The Global Digital Compact paves the way.
Our experience shows that exposure to threats does not mean vulnerability. Let me offer following observations on this.
- First, governments need to act: establish policies, institutional structures, capabilities to deal with the problem. This is a matter of making political decisions and dedicating resources.
- Second, governments cannot do it alone. Our societies are largely resilient to foreign information manipulation due to our decades-long awareness of the threat, strong independent media and civil society that expose and push back against Russian disinformation and propaganda.
- Third, we must mitigate the risks AI poses, while also embracing the opportunities it offers. Latvia has just launched the National AI Centre that will promote responsible application of AI.
- Lastly, tech companies – online platforms and AI companies – must adhere to high standards of accountability and transparency.
Mr. Chair,
To conclude, let me re-assure you that the Baltic States will continue to actively engage in the work of the Committee on Information. Promoting media and information literacy, safeguarding the freedom of expression and media independence, stepping up for information integrity worldwide, as well as ensuring resilience of vulnerable groups, societies and states, are top priorities for the Baltic States.
I thank you!