This article was originally published by Verifica RTVE.
United Nations Day is celebrated every year on October 24th to commemorate the entry into force of the United Nations Charter in 1945. On social media and the Internet, we detect different disinformation narratives that circulate repeatedly to delegitimize the UN. From hoaxes that are spread to propagate the idea that this organization seeks to control the population, to lies aimed to demonize it by claiming that the UN wants to legalize pedophilia. On the anniversary of this event, at VerificaRTVE we dismantle five disinformation narratives related to United Nations.
The UN does not intend to control the population
One of the disinformation narratives that we have detected on social media is the attribution of measures to the UN that were not implemented by the organization, just to convey the idea that it intends to control the population. For example, some social media users claim that “the UN orders banks around the world to make digital identification mandatory for all customers”. We also find posts on X claiming that this institution established the use of a “chip to identify all humanity before 2030” and that “whoever does not want to will be ‘excluded from society”. These are false claims.
The UN has not ordered banks to make digital identification of their customers mandatory. This social media posts are originated following a United Nations report entitled ‘Our Common Agenda‘. At VerificaRTVE we analyzed this document and we verified that it does not set this requirement. The UN Information Officer for Spain, Leticia Álvarez, explained to VerificaRTVE that “the United Nations cannot order anything, they cannot force private entities”. She also clarified that in the document mentioned by the false posts “at no time is there any obligation to anything” and claims that “there is no reference to an obligation of digital identification of all clients”. She stresses that this is “misinterpreted information”.
The United Nations is not seeking to implement a chip to identify the entire population. This hoax was already circulated in 2018 and appears in social media consistently. A search with keywords in English and Spanish (“UN”, “chip”, “2030”) reveals that there is no reference by the organization about a chip implementation to the population. The international news agency Reuters denied these messages in 2021. As the news outlet explained, there is a mention of digital identification by the UN in its 2015 High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report on the Biometric Identity Management System (BINS). This is a biometric identification developed by UNHCR that identifies refugees through “unique physiological characteristics, such as fingerprints, iris and facial features”. This was used in that year to identify more than 110,000 refugees from Burma hosted in the Thai border area. UNHCR also explained in 2023 that this system was used to register “people forced to flee ‘their countries by granting ’a unique identity for each refugee.” At no point is there any reference to the mandatory implantation of a chip for the entire population by 2030.
Lies about UN’s 2030 Agenda to deny climate change
In social media, we detect frequent messages that misrepresent information about the 2030 Agenda – the UN program that sets out the Sustainable Development Goals – to deny global warming. On Facebook, they use the organization’s original template to change real goals such as “end poverty” or “zero hunger” for premises such as “destroy families” or “modified food”. The posts also claim that the UN wants to “eliminate 60% of CO2 without caring that if you eliminate it… Life is impossible on Earth, Globalist 2030 Agenda”. In addition, they state that the body has approved “the ‘Pact of the Future’ giving start to the new Agenda 2045” called “Vision 2045”. These messages are false.
The 2030 Agenda does not include goals such as “destroying families”. The image circulating in social media has been digitally altered. To spread this lie, social media posts use an original UN template and change the real goals for false ones. You can check the 17 goals of the UN Agenda 2030 on the official website of the organization and check that the measures attributed to it in social media do not appear in that list.
It is also not true that the UN approved a new project called Agenda 2045. This has been confirmed to VerificaRTVE by the UN Regional Information Center for Spain (UNRIC). The UNRIC has also clarified that “there is no draft Agenda 2045 called Vision 2045”. We, at VerificaRTVE, checked that Vision 2045 is a private initiative based on the launching of a series of documentaries that has not been promoted by the UN and that does not imply the existence of a 2045 Agenda. Social media posts spreading this lie attached a video and presented it as if it belonged to the General Assembly of the United Nations held in September 2024. This is also false. It is an old recording of a meeting of the World Economic Forum in 2023.
The 2030 Agenda does not aim to reduce 60% of the Earth’s carbon dioxide. These social media claims are false. The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development sets as its thirteenth goal the adoption of “urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”. In the development of this goal, no specific figure is set for the reduction of CO2 emissions. This hoax originates from the words of Richard Lindzen, a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who denies the existence of climate change and has been publicly refuted by his colleagues.
The UN does not plan to implement a “gender ideology” and silence those who speak out against it
One of the discrediting campaigns about the UN focuses on falsely claiming that it will force the population to follow a gender ideology, thus destroying the traditional family and rejecting those who do not comply with it. On an Instagram post, a user claims that the institution “is collecting the names of anyone who opposes the LGBT agenda.” The headline of a web page also states that the United Nations “‘seeks to silence’ those who oppose gender ideology”. On X, a user demands a “No to gender ideology” and elaborates that “we see how they destroy families and UN genocide” in reference to the arrest of an Irish professor for allegedly refusing to use the pronoun “they/them”. This is false.
The UN is not trying to destroy families by forcing them to comply with “gender ideology”, nor will it silence those who do not do so. This is a recurring hoax rooted in a report conducted in 2021 that investigates, among other things, the obstacles to achieving full equality between men and women. The document does not include or mention a list of entities or individuals opposed to “gender ideology”. Neither is there any truth to the relationship drawn in social media between the UN and the case of Professor Enoch Burke in Ireland. Through a search with keywords in Spanish and English (“Enoch Burke”, “UN”, “gender”) we found that the organization is not related to this case. As we reported previously, this professor was suspended from employment and pay for refusing to accept the gender transition of one of his students. However, he did not go to prison for this reason, but for contempt of a court order that prevented him from approaching the school until there was a resolution of his case.
Hoaxes demonizing the UN by relating it to pedophilia
Other social media content is spread with the aim of conveying the idea that the UN calls for decriminalizing sex between children and adults. This is a disinformation narrative that seeks to demonize the organization by falsely associating it to pedophilia. Different posts on X share a screenshot that says: “UN report calls for decriminalization of all sexual activity, including between adults and children”. On the other hand, we detected messages claiming that the “head of the UN” or “a UN expert” has stated that “Christians who do not accept the legalization of pedophilia will be excluded from participating in society”. This is false.
The UN is not calling for the decriminalization of pedophilia and will not exclude Christians who do not accept its legalization. This lie is based on a headline that misrepresents the information in the guide on the application of criminal law on sexual health of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). What the document proposes is that consensual sex between adolescents should not be punishable. The research director of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), Rebeca Oas, points out that “in these paragraphs, in particular, there is no mention of whether sexual activity involving a person under the age of 18 involves another minor or a person who could be significantly older.” Following misinformation spread on social media, the ICJ itself clarified in a statement that these principles “do not call for the decriminalization of sexual relations with children, nor the abolition of a nationally prescribed minimum age of sexual consent.” It also stressed that “States have a clear obligation under international law to protect children from all forms of abuse, such as child sexual abuse, including by criminalizing such conduct.”
The “head of the UN” did not state that Christians who do not accept pedophilia will be expelled from society. Posts on social media distorted a report on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity published by Víctor Madrigal-Borloz, an independent expert of the UN. His text does not refer to the expulsion of Christians who do not accept pedophilia but analyzes that freedom of religion or personal beliefs is not incompatible with the equality of LGBTI people.
False attributions to the UN to spread racist hate speech
On social media, we find posts attributing false claims to the UN with the aim of spreading racist hate speech. In particular, we detected messages linking the organization to “The Great Replacement”, a conspiracy theory claiming that elites are trying to replace the white, Christian European population with migrants. A Telegram post that has been viewed more than 7,500 times since September 24 claims: “The UN publishes, for the first time, a letter referring to ‘The Great Replacement,’ a theory that until now was ‘a Nazi’s tale’ and now seems to have more weight in social reality”. We detected similar posts both on X and on Facebook. Also, we found comments from online users in several languages such as Spanish, English and French saying that the UN and its UN High Commissioner for Refugees hand out prepaid cards to “asylum seekers arriving in Europe” and that this “is automatically recharged every month with up to 550 EUR (600 USD)”. This is false.
There is no UN letter acknowledging the “Great Replacement” theory. The social media posts attach a report published by the United Nations Population Division on March 21 in the year 2000 that makes no reference to, nor does it relate to, the conspiracy theory of the Great Replacement. The study focuses “on the question of whether replacement migration is a solution to population decline and aging.” By “replacement migration” the paper “refers to the international migration that would be necessary to compensate for declining population size” (p. 127). Currently, the UN does not recognize the model in this document as a solution to depopulation. The organization’s most recent annual population outlook report discusses fertility decline and clarifies that “international migration alone cannot compensate for long-term population decline or aging and should not be considered a ‘solution’ to what is ultimately a universal and irreversible process: the demographic transition” (p. 28).
The UN and its High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) do not give asylum seekers arriving in Europe prepaid cards that are automatically recharged. At VerificaRTVE we have contacted the UNHCR Office in Spain and they confirmed that “the information shared on social networks is incorrect”. They explain to us that “there is no automatic distribution of cash assistance for asylum seekers arriving in Europe”. They point out that the photograph used in social networks to illustrate the message corresponds to a real program but that it is no longer in force: “The image used in social networks was taken in Greece, where UNHCR had a limited cash assistance program for vulnerable refugees between 2017 and 2021” that has been “transferred to the Greek Government”.
Lara Jennifer Huwyler, VerificaRTVE
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