United Kingdom announces action on disinformation and global AI standards

The United Kingdom will fight disinformation at home and abroad, and work to ensure global safety standards for artificial intelligence (AI), new Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Monday evening in his first address to the United Nations General Assembly. Mr. Burnham said recent years have seen “an industrial-scale assault by hostile actors on the information environment” in both the UK and many of its allies. He told world leaders that “Russian agencies have used every means at their disposal to spread lies and disinformation and prey on people’s fears”, including through the use of bots, fake websites and falsified news articles. Election interference, AI threat“They’ve amplified far right narratives. And we have evidence that they tried to interfere with the 2019 General Election,” he alleged. “We also know that they have tried to stoke tensions and unrest in the wake of horrific events.” False information shared online helped to spark riots following the fatal stabbing of three young girls at a dance class in the town of Southport in July 2024. Mr. Burnham maintained that the Kremlin spends roughly $1.7 billion “on manipulating information”, noting that British companies and ...