Hi, good morning everyone. Welcome to

the SDG media zone. We are live from the

UN in New York and it's my pleasure to

pass the pass the microphone to for a

conversation between UN under secretary

general global communications Melissa

Fleming

>> and founder and chairman of purpose

Jeremy Hyman's. Over to you.

>> Thank you Alexandra. Hi everybody. Um,

great to be at the media zone, the SCG

media zone today with Jeremy Hymans, who

works very closely together with the

United Nations. In fact, I think you

have been for your whole career. Just

quick aside, can you tell your story of

how you first encountered the UN,

Jeremy?

So um I was a a child ambassador for

peace from the age of about eight uh

when the cold war was winding up and

they wanted young people to kind of u

make the case for peace. So I had the

the pleasure um and the weirdness of

being kind of going to various UN events

and campaigning in advance of the world

summit for children uh all those years

ago. Um, so, uh, yes, I've long

understood the, um, the idealism and the

hope for common humanity that the UN

represents and all of that potential is

something that I really, I really

believe in.

>> Right. And we're going to talk a bit

about how we work together because you

have a an organization called Purpose. I

think there is a way that you describe

it. I always said it's kind of like a

social movement agency. How would you

describe purpose? Yeah, I think we, you

know, we are uh an agency that works all

over the world to mobilize the public to

try to shift narratives uh on global

issues. Uh and we operate in in uh on

pretty much every continent. We have

offices in eight or nine countries. So,

uh it's fascinating work. And I first

started working with you when I was

working at UNHCR and purpose was helping

us

be more strategic in how we reached

audiences and how we segmented our

audiences to to look at the concerned

middle the people who were kind of

undecided and to come up with effective

campaigns for reaching when it's it was

an issue that was being so polarized.

And now when I came here to take on this

role in 2019, we were about to start

working on how do we communicate climate

change more effectively? How do we reach

communities in the languages they speak

on the platforms where they get their

information. Um, I really turned to you

because you had just published a book

called New Power and you were really

expert in how um how these kind of

movements started where people concerned

citizens uh find a way to get to to join

forces for the common good and we really

needed to join forces with the citizens

of the world to help us reach our

climate goals. But then we had the

global pandemic and so then we started

an initiative called verified that uh

was quite novel. Can you describe what

was so different about verified than the

usual communications that come out of an

institution like the United Nations?

>> Yeah. Well, I mean as you say it was it

was March April 2020. um we knew and

already we were seeing there would be

what was described at the time as the

infomic right this massive information

challenge associated with co and you

know there was a lot that people didn't

understand at the beginning of the virus

and there was a lot that was

deliberately being put into the

information ecosystem that was wrong we

also realized that traditional

institutions would probably not um be

fit for the task on their own of

engaging with that information warfare.

You know, the vaccine skeptics, for

example, they were organized in these

very close-knit online communities. They

weren't necessarily pulling the lever of

big institutions. They are now in some

places. We'll we'll come back to that.

But they were very effective at even a

small number of actors reaching millions

or hundreds of millions of people with

rumors, with myths and disinformation.

So, we knew we had to do something about

it. And so we formed this I think really

wonderful and very novel alliance where

we took all of the institutional

credibility, the science uh and the

global reach of the UN like only the UN

could for example reach out to

broadcasters in Africa and very quickly

get uh you know reach to hundreds of

millions of Africans with public health

messages. But what we could do at

purpose was, you know, fight on this new

battlefield, right? Um, develop content

that sometimes had nothing to do with

the UN, that was unbranded, but that was

reaching audiences. I always like the

example of like we were trying to reach

young men in India. [clears throat] We

weren't going to reach young men in

India with a WH fact sheet, right? But

we could reach them with through the

YouTube comedians that they, you know,

they would watch and love. So if we

could get a YouTube comedian to create

content that specifically addressed some

of that co miss and disinformation that

was the way we were going to get those

people in large numbers engaged. So it

was a massive distributed effort to

create content in all forms in all

languages and to your earlier point

about refugees to reach the people who

were not already in our camp. the people

reading the New York Times, they were

going to be okay, right? They were

getting mostly accurate information, but

it was the people, you know, you know,

outside of those more traditional

mainstream media ecosystems that we

really needed to reach. And I'm very

proud of the work we did together uh on

that.

>> I mean, that was at a time where we

really saw that the vast majority of

people around the world were turning to

social media and to influencers. We also

saw that the kind it's kind of the

disinformation actor playbook to

identify people uh influencers to carry

their messages. They're often paid for

that. What I what really struck me about

the work that we did was that we did a

kind of call for volunteers

um information volunteers and we had

such an overwhelming response from the

public. Uh so many people really wanted

to get on board and help us spread

facts.

>> Um and then we recruited

health the health community, vaccine

scientists, doctors, trained them up on

Tik Tok. Can you just explain how that

worked? I mean, why was that so

effective?

>> Well, I think it's very instructive to

what we need to do now in the in the

horrific information environment that we

face on many issues. So we recognized

that um the way people were going to get

trusted information was through

individuals that they related to that

were compelling that they trusted

probably not through institutions in a

kind of cold impartial voice. So we went

uh knowing that vaccine confidence would

be a huge challenge we literally went to

the vaccine labs that were developing

the co vaccines. This was even before

the vaccines had been um uh published

and released. And we looked for

charismatic,

>> often young, but not always young, but

interesting people who were vaccine

scientists that we thought could tell

this story, which is a fascinating story

of the development of the vaccines and

then once the vaccines were out to the

public, who could engage, reassure, and

educate on that. And we found these

incredible people who'd actually never

used Tik Tok. And we the reason we chose

Tik Tok is that Tik Tok was and still is

in many ways the place that was

originating the most viral content on

the internet even if it was being

syndicated then through other platforms.

And we trained them in how to use Tik

Tok and we turned those people from

vaccine scientists into vaccine

scientists and stars with huge

audiences. Um, you know, we had we had

billions and billions of views of their

content and we did some really

interesting testing, you know, proper um

controlled testing that showed that that

kind of content was much more persuasive

at increasing vaccine confidence and

uptake than the more traditional health

communications that were that were

circulating. And so, and that just

reflects even in even 10 years ago that

strategy would not have been as

effective. So part of the dynamic we're

in is that the is that the the kind of

distributed influence that we now see

you know that that information trust

news is being filtered through these

individuals is so critical and that is

not necessarily a good fit for

institutions who are not used to that

kind of um level of engagement. So

together we kind of developed a network

of these influencers. We called them

team Halo, these vaccine scientists. And

that network grew over time, included

other health professionals, and that's

now what we're doing on verified on

climate. These verified climate

champions, and we have some amazing

climate champions in the room today who

are doing that work, you know, people

who will reach totally different

audiences, right, to the Brazilian

government, right? um but people with

great expertise um you know for example

people who are scientists um who can

speak with extraordinary expertise. So

this new model networks of influencers

that you coordinate that are singing

from the same sheet at one level but at

another level you're allowing a thousand

flowers to bloom. I think that's the

only way we're going to compete with the

sort of disinformation forces that we're

up against.

>> Yeah. I I remember you were expressing

your surprise that the United Nations as

an institution would step away and not

insist that our brand be part of this.

Why were you so surprised?

>> Well, I mean, you know, uh I think I I'm

going to give you some credit here,

Melissa. I think the fact that you you

were in that leadership role at the UN,

I'm not sure it would have happened with

any other leader. But I think that

institutions, you know, like the UN,

they're very riskaverse. And, you know,

understandably, the whole mental model

is what we would have called in our book

old power, right? It's the castle model.

It's control. And of course, in this

media environment, the people who are

doing that um are really getting left

behind unfortunately um because of the

way that influence and information and

attention works. So, it took a leader

who was willing to do that, but I think

it was also a partnership um of the kind

that we have that still valued trust and

integrity that we weren't going off

making stuff up, right? But we were

finding ways to make facts, truth,

reality, human and compelling. And

that's what we need a lot more of. It's

not that we just need to make stuff up

the way the other side does. That's not

going to help us in the long term. But

we do need really novel ways to reach

people and I think that's where our

partnership was, you know, and is so

compelling.

>> I mean, one of we've been working now

ever since the co 19 pandemic also on

information integrity at the United

Nations. In fact, we kind of started

calling it information integrity when we

launched UN global principles on

information integrity last summer. The

secretary general launched them here. Um

it used to be you know we were just

focusing on the platforms. This is

actually a blueprint that provides like

calls to action for all almost all

involved sectors um who play a role. So

it is the platforms and I want to come

back to them and ask you a question

about that because that was our entire

strategy. Ask the platforms to be

responsible and to favor facts over

lies. that strategy didn't work. Um, so

then we also have recommendations for

governments. We have recommendations for

traditional media too and also that

traditional media that is really kind of

collapsed in the social media era um be

bolstered because they have a huge role

uh public service role but also

advertisers and then equipping people

themselves to be able to you know

understand how miss and disinformation

travels and to defend themselves. But I

I wanted to ask

you you know why has this strategy of

confronting the platforms not worked in

your view and what do we need to do that

is just the most effective way the

people who are trying to do good in this

world the pe the institutions that are

trying to change the world for the

better how do we arm ourselves to

communicate in this day and age

>> it's such a big question and you know

look I've been as you know building

movements on different issues all my

life and this should be, you know, every

campaigner's number two issue. You know,

you might be a climate campaigner or a

LGBT campaigner or whatever, but

everyone needs to be fighting this in

information uh integrity fight, but it's

a lot harder to build a movement around

confronting the platforms around things

that can be a little bit arcane and

technical, but boy, do we need it. And I

think there's a really clear story here

of powerful interests. um you know the

enormous concentrated power of these

tech players. Um and uh you know I think

unfortunately populists and agents of

disinformation have better figured out

how to capture an ally with those

powerful technology interests than those

who want liberal democracy. And that's

the story of the last few years. And um

I think we can turn it around. You know,

I really do. Um I don't I think part of

the answer and part of the hope comes

from the fact that the ways the the

information environment is changing

almost month by month right the dominant

platforms the way people's feelings

thoughts opinions are being shaped so we

have to you know we may not be able to

change at this point what X's position

is uh or what Meta's position is in a

material way but we could shape what the

next platform that hundreds of millions

or billions of people go to. we can

shape I think still the way AI impacts

the information environment. I mean one

point I've been making recently about AI

which is interesting is that there is a

big shift coming which is that right now

most people's thoughts feelings opinions

are being shaped by social media right

by those influences by that toxic swirl

the algorithms etc. But increasingly

people's uh information environment and

trust is being shaped by their

relationship with their LLM, right? With

what we have called in our recent HBR

piece, people's digital significant

others. And that is different. So you're

going to ask that person, well, what do

you think about this um you know, what

do you think about this thing that this

rumor I just heard about climate change

or about vaccines? Right? And so what

the what the LLM says to you about that

will be incredibly important because

these LLMs are primed to make us trust

them to make us you know have a real

sense frankly of that they are all

knowing right now that carries many

risks but there's also an opportunity in

that if those LLMs are actually

reporting things back that are more

grounded in reliable and trustworthy

sources there may be an opportunity for

these LLMs to depolarize and to take the

heat out of the information environment

a little bit, but only if the boundaries

that these AI developers are set are

grounded in truth and they're not just

scraping up the junk and feeding it back

to people, right? So, that's a big

coming uh arena for advocacy and work

that we all need to do. But I also think

we need to remember not to fight the

last war that the dynamics are changing.

And in a world where, you know, you've

got these funnels where everybody's in

this very intimate one-on-one

relationship with their with their

digital significant other, like that's

quite a different information challenge

to the challenge of social media

platforms.

>> Do you have a digital significant other?

I I'd like to think I don't um in the

sense that I I I would like to think

that I have not become too

intellectually or emotionally dependent

on chat GPT but you know it is

extraordinary how much you know um this

dependency is built into these new

technologies. I mean they literally ask

us and encourage us to confide in them

to tell us our problems right and this

is going to be a very potent cultural

force maybe even more potent than the

way social media reshaped people.

>> Yeah and absolutely we're so concerned

about the information that they're

trained on. I mean, I

did this experiment with ChatGBT um

because my husband came to me one day

and asked me who a certain man was and I

said, "Why are you asking?" And I told

him and he said, "Because Chhat GBT says

he's your husband." And I and I said,

"Uh oh." And then so every month I

started asking Chat GBT, "Who is Melissa

Fleming's husband?" And each month it

told me I had a different husband. um

none of whom was my actual husband whom

I've been married to for 30 years. So

you have

>> I honestly I mean I do this these kinds

of experiments because I also just want

to know how trustworthy

is are these um LLMs. I think they're

getting better. I agree. I think there

has been a lot of alarm because these

kinds of hallucinations have been

exposed but we have seen I think it just

wanted to please me and invent somebody

I had really nice weddings

>> were they nice husbands I mean

>> I don't know some of them I knew you

know I [laughter] I prefer the one I

have but just an example of you know it

is

>> they do draw you in to trust them and

we're very concerned I mean obviously

when at a time when climate science is

being denied again at very high levels

um and people are just questioning maybe

maybe it isn't so bad or what fossil

fuel companies would like us to believe

or maybe it doesn't exist at all um

we cannot have AI agents confiding in

you by the way you know some people say

climate change isn't real when 99.9% of

climate scientists,

>> right,

>> have reached a consensus that climate

change is real, that it's man-made

caused. And so any questioning of that

is really, really dangerous. And do you

have hope? Are you do you have any

evidence that the

platforms are doing something about

this? I you know I don't have inherent

faith in the platforms but but the

nature of the technology and the way and

the source material they currently

prioritize tends to be more

authoritative source material. So they

don't necessarily look for the junk,

right? They tend to look for, you know,

uh, well-known news sources, etc. in ter

when you ask them a question like that.

So there's a little bit of hope in that,

right? And I think um, you're right, the

challenge is they want to mirror you. So

they figure out what your bias is and

they they want to speak back to you with

that. But again, I think part of what we

need to do is recognize that like these

dynamics are not the same as the social

media dynamics. So, how do we as people

who are fighting for a healthy

information environment get ready for

that next fight? Really understand what

those dynamics are um even while we're

still dealing with the chaos unleashed

by social media. But I think the short

answer is I have a little bit of hope.

Um there are big big risks, but there

are also opportunities in this step

change we're about to see for maybe

calming people down a little bit um and

taking a little bit of the toxicity out

because these LLMs, they work well when

they actually calm you down and soothe

you.

>> Whereas social media works effectively

and the economics work when they get you

riled up. It's a different psychological

dynamic.

>> This is a really hopeful note to end on.

You know the UN just conducted a global

risk report. It was probably the most

comprehensive risk report ever done

because we used our country offices all

over the world to conduct it. The top

risk that people identified that they

were concerned about and that we were

least prepared to address was miss and

disinformation.

uh we believe it underlies um every

everything that we're trying to do and

to have a healthy information ecosystem

where people can get factual trusted

information um and also some

inspiration. I think that's what we try

to provide through our collaboration

um that you know not only are people

given the facts but they're given uh

ways to get involved and ways that they

can act.

>> Yeah. I I want to leave you with one

little story, which is one of our

verified champions, Ecal in Indonesia.

He runs a recycling plant. Through the

content he makes, he's gone from having

2,000 followers talking about recycling

uh to half a million in Indonesia. And

it's massively grown the actual work

that he does, which is bringing people

into his recycling plant and increasing

the volume of of of recycling that that

happens in Indonesia. It's stories like

that that give me hope. And it's because

this is a really inspiring young man,

right, who can communicate something

that frankly isn't that exciting, right?

But in a way um that people want to

listen. Um and that's the sort of model

I think that we need um when we're up

against all of this all of this hate.

>> Thank you so much, Jeremy, for joining

us in the SG media zone. And it's great

working with you.

>> Always wonderful to be with you. Thanks,