Digital Democracy, Social Media and Disinformation by Petros Iosifidis Nicholas Nicoli

Author:Petros Iosifidis, Nicholas Nicoli [Petros Iosifidis, Nicholas Nicoli]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Media Studies
ISBN: 9781000299786
Google: KOcJEAAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 54806574
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-12-30T03:54:54+00:00

Tackling Online Disinformation: A European Approach/Code of Practice/Action Plan against Disinformation

Building on the recommendations of the HLEG report, the European Commission composed the report Tackling Online Disinformation: A European Approach (EC, 2018b), which facilitated the formation of the code of practice on disinformation. The report reemphasised the significance of the ten principles laid out in the HLEG recommendations (turning them into nine defined objectives), and further added details on the processes, the scope, the motivations of deviant agents and the definitions of the term disinformation (see Chapter Four). Furthermore, the range of efforts identified in the report highlighted the persisting threats of digital disinformation to core EU values. The report has consequently become established across the EU, and around the world, as a leading example of how to combat disinformation through self-regulation, placing at its centre the code of practice.

One addition to the report by the EC that had evaded the HLEG recommendations involves the importance of strategic communication in countering internal and external disinformation threats (EC, 2018b: 15–16). A possible reason behind this inclusion is that strategic communication, although recognised as an important function in the fight against digital disinformation, has hitherto not been sufficiently put into practice. Exceptions include the Disinformation Review Newsletter (see section on StratCom task forces) and the efforts of the East StratCom task force in cataloguing and raising awareness of pro-Kremlin disinformation. Despite the addition of the Hybrid Fusion Cell created in 2017 (whose mission is not to directly apply strategic communication), we have only witnessed a measured and gradual application of strategic communication to counter disinformation. One could argue that a more supportive approach toward its application might have mitigated Russia’s exertions to destabilise the EU’s open democracy ethos through a series of disinformation campaigns concerning the COVID-19 pandemic (see Chapter Six).

Possibly on account of a strong European ethos on freedom of expression, Tackling Online Disinformation: A European Approach stopped short of recommending direct regulatory intervention as the EU has done with digital privacy issues (for example, GDPR). Yet manifested in the code of practice, the report’s relevance is to have set in motion a process bringing together numerous stakeholders while creating a significant piece of policy reform grounded within a self-regulatory framework. In fact, the code of practice on disinformation (EC, 2018c) ‘is the first worldwide self-regulatory set of standards to fight disinformation voluntarily signed by platforms, leading social networks, advertisers and the advertising industry’ (EC, 2019). These organisations refer to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube/Google, and Mozilla but also include other significant European stakeholders such as the European Brands Association, the European Advertising Standards Alliance, the European Newspaper Publishers Association, the European Broadcasting Union, the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe, the World Federation of Advertisers and academics and civil society entities (EC, 2018e); the code was signed off in October 2018 while others continue to follow suit by signing up (for example, Microsoft signed in May 2019) (EC, 2020c).

Despite these achievements, the multi-stakeholder meetings of the aforementioned entities had difficulties in coming to an agreement.

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