Uit een toespraak van Antonio Guterres van maandag 22/2/2021. Zo horen we het eens van een ander.
"Using the pandemic as a pretext, authorities in some countries have deployed heavy-handed security responses and emergency measures to crush dissent, criminalize basic freedoms, silence
independent reporting and curtail the activities of non-governmental organisations.
Human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, political activists — and even medical professionals — are being detained, prosecuted and subjected to intimidation and surveillance for criticizing government pandemic responses — or the lack thereof.
Pandemic-related restrictions are being used to subvert electoral processes, weaken opposition voices and suppress criticism. At times, access to life-saving COVID-19 information has been concealed—while deadly misinformation has been amplified — including by those in power.
The COVID-19 infodemic has raised alarms more generally about the growing reach of digital platforms and the use and abuse of data.
A vast library of information is being assembled about each of us. Yet we don’t really have the keys to that library. We don’t know how this information has been collected, by whom or for what purposes.
That data is being used commercially — for advertising, for marketing and for beefing up corporate bottom lines.
Behavior patterns are being commodified and sold like futures contracts. This has created new business models and entirely new industries that have contributed to an ever-greater concentration of wealth and inequality.
Our data is also being used to shape and manipulate our perceptions, without our ever realizing it.
Governments can exploit that data to control the behavior of their own citizens, violating human rights of individuals or groups.
All of this is not science fiction or a forecast of a 22nd-century dystopia.
It is here and now. And it requires a serious discussion.
..."