International Panel on the Information Environment

The International Panel on the Information Environment is an international consortium of over 250 experts^[1] from 55 countries dedicated to providing actionable scientific knowledge on threats to our information landscape. The IPIE has said it is modeled after and learning from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.^[2] The concept was officially proposed in a 2021 virtual meeting by Dr. Sheldon Himelfarb, then President and CEO of PeaceTech Lab,^[3] and Professor Philip Howard, Professor at Oxford University and then Director of the Oxford Internet Institute, during the first Nobel Prize Summit organized by the US National Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation.^[4]

Himmelfarb and Howard (2021) reported several motivations for launching IPIE including the following:

• Misinformation is reducing the effectiveness of vaccines.
• Foreign interference has impacted the 2016 and 2020 US elections.
• Mobs in India, South Sudan, Myanmar, and Mexico have killed innocent people because of misinformation spread on Facebook.
• False claims of electoral fraud have eroded public confidence in elections, causing damage that can’t simply be mitigated through fact-checking on social media platforms. This is a global crisis for democracy.

IPIE was legally registered in Switzerland in 2023.^[5]

Management

Sheldon Himelfarb is co-founder and chair of the IPIE.^[6] The proposal for the IPIE grew in-part out of his work as Founder and CEO of PeaceTech Lab,^[7] which itself had been spun out of his work as the Director of the Center of Innovation at the United States Institute of Peace.^[8] One of Himelfarb's publications is the 2011 US Institute of Peace publication on, "Evaluating media interventions in conflict countries: Toward developing common principles and a community of practice".^[9]

The CEO of IPIE is Dr. Philip N. Howard,^[10] who is also the director of Oxford University's Programme on Democracy and Technology.^[11] Some of his related research is summarized in his 2020 book, Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives.^[12]

Jenny Woods is the Executive Director and COO of the IPIE.^[13]

Official launch

In May 2023 the IPIE was officially introduced during the 2023 Nobel Prize Summit.^[14] The Panel's inaugural announcement said,

Algorithmic bias, manipulation and misinformation has become a global and existential threat that exacerbates existing social problems, degrades public life, cripples humanitarian initiatives and prevents progress on other serious threats.

At the launch, Sheldon Himelfarb said that misinformation is "so far-reaching that it is rapidly becoming an existential threat to the planet."^[14]

A New York Times report on the Panel's launch described its initial plans to "issue regular reports, not fact-checking individual falsehoods but rather looking for deeper forces behind the spread of disinformation as a way to guide government policy."^[15]

References

• Amelia Arsenault; Sheldon Himelfarb; Susan Abbott (2011), Evaluating media interventions in conflict countries: Toward developing common principles and a community of practice (PDF), United States Institute of Peace, Wikidata Q124692340
• Guardian Nigeria (22 May 2023). "Global disinformation experts launch Int'l Panel on Information Environment". The Guardian. ISSN 0189-5125. Wikidata Q124711490.
• Sheldon Himelfarb; Philip N. Howard (7 October 2021). "What's stunning about the misinformation trend – and how to fix it". CNN. Wikidata Q124714356.
• Sheldon Himelfarb; Katherine Maher; Vint Cerf; Philip N. Howard; Ian Goldin; Tawakkol Karman (3 May 2021). ""A Call for an Intergovernmental Panel on the Information Environment" during the Nobel Prize Summit". YouTube. Wikidata Q124711671.
• Philip N. Howard (2020). Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-25020-7. Wikidata Q124713543.
• IPIE (2024a), IPIE Scientists, International Panel on the Information Environment, Wikidata Q124711439
• IPIE (2024b), Philip Howard, IPIE Co-founder and CEO, Wikidata Q124713098
• IPIE (2024c), Sheldon Himelfarb, Co-founder and Chair of the IPIE, Wikidata Q124711828
• Graham Lawton (2 June 2021). "We need to set up an international body to fight fake news". New Scientist. ISSN 0262-4079. Wikidata Q124711649.
• Steven Lee Myers (24 May 2023). "With Climate Panel as a Beacon, Global Group Takes On Misinformation". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Wikidata Q124714300.
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (22 June 2023). "Nobel Prize Summit Fuels Initiatives to Combat Misinformation and Disinformation and Build Trust in Science". National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Wikidata Q124711722.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• PeaceTech Lab (2023a), PeaceTech Lab announces its disollution (published December 2023), Wikidata Q124711801
• PeaceTech Lab (2023b), Sheldon Himelfarb, PeaceTech Lab President and CEO, Wikidata Q124711849
• Alison Snyder (28 May 2023). "Worries mount about misinformation in science". Axios. Wikidata Q124713797.
• University of Oxford (2024), Professor Philip Howard: Professor of Internet Studies, Wikidata Q124713536
• Wilson Center (2013). "Sheldon Himelfarb, Director of the Centers of Innovation at the United States Institute of Peace". Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Wikidata Q124713008.

Notes