“A Global Digital Compact” – UN promoting censorship, social credit & much more

“A Global Digital Compact” – UN promoting censorship, social credit & much more

Kit Knightly

Late last month the office of the United Nation’s Secretary General published a policy document on aims for the future of the internet.

A follow-up to the 2021 report “Our Common Agenda”, the new report’s title says it all really, “A Global Digital Compact”. That’s the goal, international legislation that would seek to control and enforce the use of digital technology.

The proposed clauses promote everything you’d expect them to promote.

Digital identities linked with financial access:

Digital IDs linked with bank or mobile money accounts can improve the delivery of social protection coverage and serve to better reach eligible beneficiaries. Digital technologies may help to reduce leakage, errors and costs in the design of social protection programmes

Environmental or climate change-based social credit systems:

Sensors and monitors connected to the Internet of things, cloud-based data platforms, blockchain-enabled tracking systems and digital product passports unlock new capabilities for the measurement and tracking of environmental and social impacts across value chains.”

Public-Private Partnership:

Partnerships between States, private sector and civil society leverage the capacity of digital tools to provide solutions for development across the Sustainable Development Goals. Examples include the Digital Public Infrastructure Alliance, the Coalition for Digital Environmental Sustainability and public-private partnerships for disaster response.”

Countering online “harm”:

Disinformation, hate speech and malicious and criminal activity in cyberspace raise the risks and costs for everyone online […] we must strengthen accountability for harmful and malicious acts online.

Those are the obvious ones, there’s also more sneaky, insidious language regarding “equity” and “access”. The report is concerned there are many people in the world (mostly the developing world) who don’t have regular access to the Internet.

This concern would be more honestly expressed in the language of control – people who don’t consume digital media can’t be hypnotised, people who don’t communicate online can’t be censored, and people who don’t rely on digital banking can’t be controlled.

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