At the International Advertising Association's IAA Unites conference earlier this month, a representative from the United Nations discussed the United Nations Global Principles for Information Integrity, and the role that advertisers can play in building trust and fighting disinformation.  

According to the UN, the Principles “envision an information ecosystem that delivers choice, freedom, privacy and safety for all, in which people everywhere can express themselves freely and make informed and independent decisions.”  The Principles are: 

• Societal trust and resilience.  Trust refers to the confidence people have in the reliability and accuracy of the information they access, and resilience refers to the ability of societies to handle disruption or manipulation of the information ecosystem. 
• Healthy incentives.  Advertisers and tech companies can adopt business models that simultaneously uphold human rights and strengthen information integrity and make good business sense.  
• Public empowerment.  Shifts in tech company policies and increased media literacy can empower users with greater control over their online experience and the use of their own data.
• Independent, free and pluralistic media.  Information integrity is only achievable with an independent, free and pluralistic media.  Robust and urgent responses are needed to support public interest journalism around the world. 
• Transparency and research.  Grater transparency and data access is vital to improve understanding of information environments worldwide and provide evidence-based solutions to promote information integrity. 

Warning that "people are stuck in an echo chamber, Sherri Aldis, the Director of the UN Regional Information Centre for Western Europe, said that advertisers can demand transparency across AI and advertising supply chains, prioritize quality media environments and journalism, set clear standards for where and how ads appear in AI generated content, and use commercial leverage to require stronger safeguards.  

Adlis said that taking proactive steps to improve the information ecosystem will build consumer trust.  And, if advertisers fail to do that, it could lead to increased regulatory pressure.  Saying that “advertisers are not bystanders,” she encouraged advertisers to take action.

She emphasized that advertisers shouldn't feel like they need to solve this problem on their own and that the solution lies in joint action.  Expressing the concern that, “Everybody feels like it is somebody else's problem, so no one does anything," she concluded, “we have to combine forces.”