Imagine this: one major power launches an operation against another’s ship in a sensitive strategic zone, acting on intelligence that the vessel is carrying sanctioned goods. The operation sparks a major international incident that brings the two powers to the brink of war.

Unlikely as this may sound in today’s hi-tech world of sensory awareness, it did almost happen. In mid-September, it was reported that the US military was on the verge of launching an operation against a Chinese ship near Iran, which intelligence suggested was carrying components for a nuclear weapons programme. The intelligence came from the US Special Operations Command Pacific in Hawaii, where an analyst had used an AI chatbot to examine the vessel’s manifest. The system wrongly identified the cargo as nuclear-linked.

Filed as an intelligence report, the information set a military operation in motion. According to media reports, US aircraft were already airborne with military personnel preparing to board the Chinese ship when the AI-generated identification was finally found to be false and the operation halted.

Whether intentionally or otherwise, the management and manipulation of information has become a major threat to global peace and security. Disinformation is now easier to use in ways that are harder to detect and harder to combat, while the suppression and manipulation of the truth has become an important means of escalating and prolonging conflict.

How, then, can truth be protected? The urge to lie and misinform is as natural a human instinct as the urge to be open and honest, perhaps more so. As 20th century political philosopher Hannah Arendt observed: “No one … has ever counted truthfulness as a political virtue.”Yet just as international conventions safeguard access to health, asylum and food, so there is arguably an urgent need to safeguard access to fact-based information, so that people can trust what they see and hear, and judge the veracity of what they are told.

Accurate, evidence-based information is an essential ingredient of peace. Advanced technology, artificial intelligence included, has made it easier than ever to distort, to mislead and to entirely fabricate information, with the result fast becoming a weapon for sowing fear and escalating conflict. Disinformation – not only outright falsehoods, but also manipulated partial truths – can now be used to determine the course of real events and, like other weapons of mass destruction, may need to be governed by international convention.

It was once possible to combat what we called propaganda using access to independent media. But today’s information operations, employing the tools of pervasive social media, AI and cyber tools, are much harder to defend against. Setting aside the financial and political constraints on contemporary media, it is increasingly governments, even those subject to public scrutiny, that seek to mislead their people and withhold accurate information.

For these reasons, defending access to information and ensuring its unimpeded flow in ever more challenging environments becomes a responsibility of the global commons.

One approach would be to make it the duty of the United Nations to protect the flow of accurate information as part of its mission to safeguard peace and human security.

That could begin with broadening the mandate of the UN’s special envoy for digital and emerging technologies, Under-Secretary-General Amandeep Singh Gill. He has warned that new technology could soon bypass cybersecurity defences, accelerate armed conflict and erode public trust through deepfakes and misinformation. “When we cannot tell the difference between what is true and untrue, what is reality or imaginary, then we lose this shared sense of an understanding of facts,” he said at an ethics and technology conference in May.

Gill is spot on, but he needs the authority to lead on ensuring that people have access to accurate information, much as they have rights to health and safety. A first step would be to outline processes that everyone can agree on for labelling deceptive or misleading content, much like media fact-checkers already do. The UN could also raise funds for digital literacy programmes, especially in poorer countries. In a world swamped with disinformation, digital news literacy should be a core component of education.

These and other measures could eventually be framed as a General Assembly resolution to codify new standards of information protection. Such standards could build on existing norms of cyber behaviour and extend to the output of AI labs, which are churning out ever more sophisticated models that help to confect convincing fakery.

It will not be easy. The usefulness of manipulating the truth makes agreements on information protection hard to imagine. Facts, and the way they are presented, can obviously be viewed subjectively. Whose truth prevails is often contested. Platforms, locally trusted messengers and AI companies would all need to play a part. More visible watermarking of AI-generated content could be helpful, for example.

An internationally recognised information protection agency would need a mandate and the means to effectively monitor, provide the resources for training and ensure access to verified truth in any given context. Just like the World Food Programme or the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, it would equip stakeholders with the means to better monitor and protect truth.

The UN already has a Department of Global Communications, but its mission is narrowly defined as providing information that supports “the aims and work of the United Nations”. Offering a platform for effective communication is not the challenge the world faces; protecting information and ensuring its veracity is.

Some might say the world doesn’t need a new international mechanism. But this cannot be left to civil society alone – it requires the force of international law and convention. If the truth goes unprotected, the future becomes more dangerous: polarisation and disagreement more easily escalate into conflict, and the obstacles to mitigation and mediation will be insurmountable.