PRESS RELEASE : Foreign information manipulation – US, UK and Canada joint statement [February 2024]
The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 16 February 2024.
The US, UK and Canada have issued a joint statement on coordinated efforts to counter foreign state information manipulation.
The text of the following statement was released by the Governments of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Canada on coordinated efforts to counter foreign state information manipulation:
The United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada remain deeply concerned about foreign information manipulation and other actions designed to undermine our democracies and human rights globally.
Foreign information manipulation is a national security threat that undermines democratic values, human rights, governmental processes, and political stability. Given the borderless nature of information manipulation, we call on all like-minded countries committed to the rules-based order to work together to identify and counter this threat. Securing the integrity of the global information ecosystem is central to popular confidence in governance institutions and processes, trust in elected leaders, and the preservation of democracy.
The present international system, based on international law and respect for territorial boundaries, is competing with an alternate vision defined by autocratic impunity. This alternate vision deploys foreign malign influence aimed at undermining our safety and security, with disregard for universal human rights and the rule of law.
The time is now for a collective approach to the foreign information manipulation threat that builds a coalition of like-minded countries committed to strengthening resilience and response to information manipulation. We can do this through coordinated, whole of society solutions that work with experts, independent media and multilateral organizations, to address these transnational security threats.
That is why today, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada jointly endorse the Framework to Counter Foreign State Information Manipulation, which affirms our shared understanding of the threat and offers a holistic view of how to address the foreign information manipulation challenge. It aims to standardize our approach to this problem and build interoperable and complementary systems to resist this threat as technologies continue to emerge and adapt. The Framework complements the high-level international commitments from the Global Declaration on Information Integrity Online and reinforces our joint efforts and commitment to protect and promote information integrity.
The United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada intend to collaborate on building partner countries’ resilience to foreign information manipulation by advancing the Framework’s Key Action Areas: national strategies and policies; governance structures and institutions; capacity; civil society, independent media, and academia; and multilateral engagement.
The United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada intend to jointly work on operationalizing relevant Key Action Areas through new and existing multilateral mechanisms, such as the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism, and in coordination with other likeminded partners and multilateral organizations.
