10 June 2021 - Secretary of State Gheorghe Leucă participated in the Ministerial Conference "Artificial Intelligence – Challenges and Opportunities for Media and Democracy" organized by the Council of Europe and the Cypriot authorities, which took place in a videoconference format.
The aim of the conference is to bring on a common platform for the member states of the Council of Europe, international officials, public policy experts, academics, journalists, representatives of the IT industry, in order to discuss the impact of artificial intelligence on the freedom of expression, and the forms of emerging media, safety of journalists, and how these developments are affecting democratic societies.
Secretary of State Gheorghe Leucă spoke on the subject of changes in the journalistic environment and the information space, emphasizing the role of new information technologies, including social platforms in the realization of the right to free expression, demonopolization of the information space, increasing transparency and access to information. In addition to pointing out the achievements at the national level, including the preparation and adoption by the Council of Europe's Code of Audiovisual Media Services, he pointed out the challenges that come with the more active use of information technologies, including social networking sites – as well as using them in a campaign of misinformation, the spread of hate speech, the stimulation of lacking confidence in the democratic institutions.
In this context, Gheorghe Leucă stressed that the response to these challenges must materialize in a complex, inclusive, transparent and multisectoral reform process, under the guidance of the Council of Europe, which is the best positioned entity to generate new standards and guidelines.
At the end of the conference, the Member States of the Council of Europe are to adopt a political declaration on the commitment to approve new measures to ensure a response to existing challenges in the media, in strict accordance with the organization's standards, principles and values on human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
