Blinken urged democracies to use technology to help citizens

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has called on democracies around the world to work together to ensure technology is used to advance democratic values ​​and to counter attempts by authoritarian regimes to use the same technology to suppress and control citizens.
Blinken made the comment while participating in a panel discussion on “Advancing Democracy and Internet Freedom in the Digital Age” at President Joe Biden’s Democracy Summit, which is taking place mostly virtually this week.
Blinken said the world is at a point where technology is “reshaping the world” and noted that many countries are using these technologies to advance democratic principles and improve the lives of their citizens.
He pointed to the Maldives, where hearings are taking place online; Malaysia, where 3 million new voters registered online last year; and Estonia, where public services are delivered faster and easier thanks to the Internet.
At the same time, Blinken said the internet is increasingly being used to spread misinformation and incite hatred. He said the United States and its Democratic partners must establish rules and regulations to promote an open, free, and secure Internet.
The Secretary of State has identified four priorities to achieve this goal, including using technology to make a real difference in people’s lives, establishing rights rules for new technologies, investing in innovation and fights against the consequences of authoritarian governments using digital tools to offend citizens and weaken democracy.
At the start of the summit, White House officials underscored America’s desire to make “tech work for democracy, not against it.”
On Wednesday, the prime ministers of eight European countries signed an open letter to the leaders of major social networks, calling on them to do more to block the spread of false information on their platforms. The leaders of Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia signed the letter.
The appeal to business leaders says their technology platforms have “become virtual battlegrounds and hostile foreign powers are using them to spread false information that contradicts factual information.”
The letter’s authors also noted that the advertising and promotion of posts on Meta platforms, including Facebook, is often used to call for social unrest, incite violence in the streets and destabilize governments.
The summit is attended by around 120 world leaders. The event is seen as an attempt by Joe Biden to shore up democracies as authoritarian governments push their own agendas, such as Russia’s 13-month invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s alliance with Moscow.
A White House statement released on Tuesday said: “President Biden has called the struggle to strengthen democratic governance at home and abroad the defining challenge of our time…Democracy…remains the best way to achieve lasting peace and prosperity and to uphold human dignity.”