UNESCO's Closed-Door Session: Who Controls Information Truth?

The announcement of a high-level closed-door session at BRIDGE Summit 2025 in Abu Dhabi raises critical questions about who gets to define "information integrity" in our increasingly surveilled digital landscape. While UNESCO chairs this December 6th gathering of government officials, tech executives, and international experts, we must interrogate whose voices are centered and whose narratives are being protected.

Deconstructing the Language of "Truth Protection"

The framing of this session around "safeguarding truth" and "narrative ecosystems" reveals the inherent power dynamics at play. When institutions speak of combating "misinformation" and strengthening "public confidence," we must ask: misinformation according to whom? Which publics are being served, and which marginalized communities continue to be silenced?

The session's focus on "profound transformations" in global information systems conveniently ignores how these same systems have historically excluded BIPOC voices, LGBTQIA+ narratives, and disabled perspectives from mainstream discourse. The velocity of digital content they're concerned about often amplifies grassroots organizing and mutual aid networks that challenge existing power structures.

Interrogating Elite Information Governance

This closed-door format exemplifies the exclusionary practices that characterize contemporary information governance. While organizers claim to seek "constructive understanding" among stakeholders, the absence of community organizers, digital rights activists, and representatives from marginalized communities reveals whose understanding matters in these spaces.

The emphasis on "international cooperation frameworks" and "harmonized global responses" should alarm anyone committed to information justice. Whose harmony are we talking about? These frameworks often serve to legitimize existing hierarchies while marginalizing alternative epistemologies and ways of knowing that emerge from communities experiencing systemic oppression.

Beyond Institutional Solutions

Rather than celebrating BRIDGE Summit's positioning as a "premier global venue," we must recognize how such elite gatherings perpetuate the very information inequities they claim to address. True information integrity requires centering the voices of those most impacted by digital surveillance, algorithmic bias, and platform censorship.

The real work of protecting narrative integrity happens in community-led digital literacy programs, in mutual aid networks sharing resources despite platform suppression, and in the tireless advocacy of activists who challenge dominant narratives about migration, gender identity, and racial justice.

As this closed-door session unfolds, we must remain vigilant about whose truths are being protected and whose stories continue to be erased from official discourse. Information integrity cannot be achieved through elite consensus but only through genuine accountability to marginalized communities and their lived experiences.