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Dadparvar
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The United Nations on Friday launched a new initiative to safeguard victims of terror attacks from online harm and retraumatisation, with its primary aim being to ensure a victim-centric approach to building a safer environment for internet users.
Friday, i.e, August 21, marks the International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism. First established in 2017 through Resolution 72/165, August 21 is commemorated to honour and support terror attack victims and survivors and promote and protect human rights and freedoms.
Last year, the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) launched the Victims of Terrorism Associations Network (VoTAN). One of the key outcomes of the first UN Global Congress of Victims of Terrorism held in 2022 was to bring victims, survivors, victims’ associations and other civil society organisations together and provide a safe space to support each other and engage in advocacy to bring about meaningful change. Presently, VoTAN connects 120 victims and victims’ associations across 40 countries.
This year, VoTAN released a briefing paper, entitled “Building a Safer Internet for Victims of Terrorism”. In commenting on the importance of the briefing paper and calling for better safeguards to be put into place to further protect vulnerable people, Alexandre Zouev, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Counter Terrorism, UNOCT stated:
At times, victims and their families were attacked through social media, noted Odette Chesnot, a psychologist and founder of the Lebanese Association of Victims of Terrorism. Chesnot emphasised that such content can have a deep psychological impact, reactivating the trauma. Sudden exposure to content that reminds victims of their trauma can hinder their progress towards full recovery.
Presently, the process of a digital clean up lies squarely on the victims. The briefing papers provides guidelines and recommendations that move past the basic content removal to a truly victim-centric framework right into platform design. VoTAN lays down some key features that need to be incorporated into platform designs such as priority reporting channels and protected status for victims where verified victims bypass bots and are directly dealt with human moderators who are trained in trauma and content moderation. This is particularly important especially nearing and during the anniversary of attacks in order to reduce the amplification of extremist content and prevent the unjust monetisation of such content.
Another important recommended feature is the Golden Hour Protocol, wherein platforms need pre-arranged crisis response rooms in the first moments after an attack to share verified information, ensuring the algorithmic misinformation and deepfakes do not take root.
The post UN announces new initiative to protect terrorism victims from online harm and retraumatisation appeared first on JURIST - News.
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Friday, i.e, August 21, marks the International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism. First established in 2017 through Resolution 72/165, August 21 is commemorated to honour and support terror attack victims and survivors and promote and protect human rights and freedoms.
Last year, the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) launched the Victims of Terrorism Associations Network (VoTAN). One of the key outcomes of the first UN Global Congress of Victims of Terrorism held in 2022 was to bring victims, survivors, victims’ associations and other civil society organisations together and provide a safe space to support each other and engage in advocacy to bring about meaningful change. Presently, VoTAN connects 120 victims and victims’ associations across 40 countries.
This year, VoTAN released a briefing paper, entitled “Building a Safer Internet for Victims of Terrorism”. In commenting on the importance of the briefing paper and calling for better safeguards to be put into place to further protect vulnerable people, Alexandre Zouev, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Counter Terrorism, UNOCT stated:
The event further followed up with experiences being shared by survivors of several devastating terror attacks across the globe. While introducing the briefing paper, Dr Maysoon Salama, Manager of An-Nur Child Care Centre, explained how platforms often trigger trauma long after the crises fade. Graphic clips are often pushed to viewers as trending news through the recommendation-based algorithm. Apart from the non-consensual release of images and videos, trauma is triggered in victims through deepfake creation, manipulation of events, and showing support to the accused, thereby denying and distorting victims’ attacks.
At times, victims and their families were attacked through social media, noted Odette Chesnot, a psychologist and founder of the Lebanese Association of Victims of Terrorism. Chesnot emphasised that such content can have a deep psychological impact, reactivating the trauma. Sudden exposure to content that reminds victims of their trauma can hinder their progress towards full recovery.
Presently, the process of a digital clean up lies squarely on the victims. The briefing papers provides guidelines and recommendations that move past the basic content removal to a truly victim-centric framework right into platform design. VoTAN lays down some key features that need to be incorporated into platform designs such as priority reporting channels and protected status for victims where verified victims bypass bots and are directly dealt with human moderators who are trained in trauma and content moderation. This is particularly important especially nearing and during the anniversary of attacks in order to reduce the amplification of extremist content and prevent the unjust monetisation of such content.
Another important recommended feature is the Golden Hour Protocol, wherein platforms need pre-arranged crisis response rooms in the first moments after an attack to share verified information, ensuring the algorithmic misinformation and deepfakes do not take root.
The post UN announces new initiative to protect terrorism victims from online harm and retraumatisation appeared first on JURIST - News.
Continue reading...
Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.