Geneva – At a critical moment for global displacement, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) issued a stark warning on Wednesday: the rapid proliferation of misinformation, hate speech, and sophisticated artificial intelligence-generated content is creating a deadly new landscape for refugees, exacerbating existing dangers and severely undermining the humanitarian mission. Speaking ahead of the AI for Good Summit in Geneva, UNHCR officials detailed how digital falsehoods are no longer merely a nuisance but an active threat that incites real-world violence against vulnerable populations and the aid workers who assist them. The agency emphasized that the very technologies fueling this crisis must be harnessed to counter it, urging a collaborative and inclusive approach to global AI governance that puts refugee protection at its core.
The warning comes as the UNHCR reports an alarming increase in hostile narratives targeting both the displaced and its own personnel. The agency highlighted specific incidents where online campaigns have translated directly into physical danger. A recent example in Libya demonstrated this lethal trajectory: a wave of violent hate speech and dangerous misinformation incited hostility and abuse against refugees, placing UNHCR staff and humanitarian workers supporting displaced and host communities at significant risk. Similarly, the UNHCR has documented the rise of harmful AI-generated deepfake videos featuring its officials and illustrating a growing challenge where synthetic media is used to spread disinformation and potentially incite harm. This digital onslaught, the agency notes, is systematically targeting refugees, particularly women, and is increasingly weaponized to disrupt asylum processes and humanitarian operations.
Beyond the immediate physical threats, the UNHCR expounded on the profound social and operational consequences of this “information disorder.” The agency points to a direct correlation between the spread of falsehoods and the erosion of social cohesion, which in turn hampers the integration of refugees into host communities. When distorted information leads to scapegoating and dehumanizing speech, it reduces access to jobs and education for the displaced and creates a hostile environment that can lead to forced secondary displacement. For UNHCR operations, the impact is equally severe. The survey data reveals that 93 percent of UNHCR staff have witnessed some form of misinformation, disinformation, or hate speech related to their work. This not only affects the delivery of their mandate—from registration to life-saving assistance—but also poses a significant risk to staff morale and security, potentially forcing the agency to curtail its activities in already volatile regions.
The UNHCR is quick to clarify that its concern is not with legitimate debate on migration policy but with deliberate, life-threatening information campaigns. The agency emphasized that freedom of expression is fundamental, yet it is being hijacked by bad actors, including smugglers and traffickers, who use digital platforms to deceive people fleeing war and persecution with false promises of safety and legal pathways. These deceptive narratives often lead vulnerable individuals into dangerous and exploitative situations. The challenge, as the UNHCR describes, is fast-evolving and cannot be solved by any single actor. The agency is therefore calling for a coordinated, multi-stakeholder response, insisting that refugee and humanitarian contexts must not be left behind in critical discussions about AI governance. Trusted information is not a luxury; it is a necessity for refugee protection, and information integrity is essential to saving lives.
In response to this growing crisis, the UNHCR underscored its commitment to practical and collaborative solutions. The agency highlighted the creation of a Community of Practice on Information Integrity in Humanitarian Contexts, initiated with support from Switzerland, which brings together diverse stakeholders at local and global levels to share strategies and best practices. A key outcome of this collaboration is the Information Integrity Response Toolkit, a resource already used by 2,000 practitioners worldwide to guide practical action. The toolkit provides frameworks for risk assessment and community-based responses, helping humanitarian actors navigate the complex digital environment. Furthermore, the UNHCR pointed to initiatives such as the Global Refugee Forum Multistakeholder Pledge on Information Integrity, launched with Google in 2023, as models for the kind of cross-sectoral partnerships that need to be systematized and scaled up.
As the international community convenes for the AI for Good Summit, the UNHCR’s message is one of urgent and sobering clarity: the digital battlefield is now an extension of the humanitarian frontline. The agency insists that technology, while a vector for harm, can also be part of the solution. By investing in digital literacy for refugees, developing AI tools to detect and counter disinformation in less-common languages, and embedding humanitarian perspectives into the very architecture of AI development, the international community can begin to turn the tide. The UNHCR’s appeal is a call to action for governments, tech companies, and civil society to work together to ensure that the digital ecosystem does not become another barrier to safety, but rather a tool for protection, truth, and human dignity in a world of unprecedented displacement.
