President thanked Reporters Without Borders for bringing together media and civic actors at the forum. Egils Levits speech focused on the strong link between democracy and freedom of expression, ‘Democracy and information are two sides of the same coin – building blocks of free and democratic societies governed by the rule of law’. President also highlighted the threats posed by disinformation and distorted information to democracy.
President pointed out that new technologies offer a multitude of opportunities in terms of social development around the world. However, according to Egils Levits, at the same time, we are constantly faced with new risks to our security, privacy and democracy. Disinformation is a social and political challenge.
As president explained, to counter disinformation, democratic world needs to promote media pluralism, raise public awareness on the phenomena, boost media literacy, strengthen the rule of law and the judiciary. ‘Europe needs a coordinated long-term strategy for addressing the challenges arising from hostile disinformation campaigns,’ said the President. Egils Levits also shared the disinformation countering developments in Latvia with participants of the forum. The STRATCOM activities and Baltic Centre for Media Excellence.
Forum of Information and Democracy is an initiative of the NGO ‘Reporters Without Borders’ aimed at producing recommendations for better journalism, especially on social media and on-line platforms. Latvia is one of the 12 countries that supported this initiative during the 2018 Paris Peace Forum. Today International Initiative on Information & Democracy is implemented by and between 30 countries.
Established by Emmanuel Macron in 2018, President of the Republic of France, Paris Peace Forum is a high-level dialogue aimed at promoting international cooperation and discuss current global economic, climate change migration and other challenges. President of Latvia attended the opening ceremony of the Paris Peace Forum, poster exhibition focused on new technologies and education and presented the gift to organising committee – photos of the Baltic Way.
