Deconflictualisation and emancipation from disinformation and deception
Ɖʋkʋnɖǝ was created by journalists, authors and bloggers from Togo, Switzerland, France and many African countries in order to participate in the reduction of conflictualities and to promote peace, which is a necessary condition for the achievement of the sustainable development goals established by the UN 2030 agenda.
Whether in the traditional media or on the Internet, describing the world plays a fundamental role in the construction of representations and therefore in the genesis of conflictualities. This neo-situationist viewpoint led to Ɖʋkʋnɖǝ's first objective: to develop the capacity of journalists, authors, and bloggers to disseminate an indispensable culture of deconflictualisation and diversity, and to strengthen citizens' capacities for emancipation from disinformation, conflictualising discourses, and destabilisation operations conducted on social media.
Safety and confidentiality
This first objective has naturally led to two other objectives: the protection of journalists, authors and citizen journalists, and the defense of the right to inform.
The safety of journalists and authors traditionally relies on the right to pseudonymity, which is now threatened by AFNIL and by social media operated by Big Tech. Ɖʋkʋnɖǝ's second goal is therefore to defend privacy, personal data protection and the right to pseudonymity.
Informational rights
Ɖʋkʋnɖǝ's third objective is to defend the right to inform against the persistence of censorship policies carried out by various state and non-state actors. In particular, Ɖʋkʋnɖǝ opposes the concept of Big Tech self-regulation, which justifies private censorship of billions of individuals by U.S. companies operating social media like Facebook. This private censorship denies users' right to due process, weakens their countries' judicial institutions, and threatens digital sovereignties by enabling electoral manipulation and destabilisation operations.
The pervasive case of Artificial Intelligence
Ɖʋkʋnɖǝ is particularly interested in specific technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), that relate to all of its goals. AI is beginning to be used in conflicts in Africa, such as in Libya, where Turkish drones have been used in autonomous mode: in this mode, the decision to kill is made by a machine, with the human being excluded from the decision loop. In the field of disinformation, AI allows the creation of deep fakes videos that will become more and more difficult to detect and will allow the manipulation of public opinions. AI is also used for surveillance purposes, for example for facial recognition and the creation of massive identity files based on images recovered from the Internet. Finally, due to the amount of information published on the Internet, social media are using AI to censor postings. All these uses of AI are threats that users must be aware of, and that legislators will have to take into account.