Is the EU making progress in fighting disinformation?

Part of #ERGA webinar today.

My topline: Perhaps? A little? Though problems continue to evolve, maybe faster than responses.

But if nothing else, has done more than other large, complex polities like .

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To take it from beginning - EU has for years identified disinfo as a “major challenge for European democracies and societies”, #covid19 crisis has only further underlined challenges

First response was creation of High Level Group on Online Disinformation, I was part of it

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In March 2018, the HLG delivered its report https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/final-report-high-level-expert-group-fake-news-and-online-disinformation

It's long and uneven.

@cjimenezcruz, @cward1e @Mantzarlis (then director of @factchecknet) and myself, all of whom had served on it, identified six key takeaways in this post https://medium.com/@hlegresponse/six-key-points-from-the-eu-commissions-new-report-on-disinformation-1a4ccc98cb1c

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6 key things?

1 Stop calling it f*ke news.
2 Focus on collaborative responses
3 Provide funding for research
4 Platforms need to share data
5 Public authorities need to share data
6 Need for significant €€€ support for independent news media, fact-checking, MI literacy

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About 8 months later, the @EU_Commission announced its action plan against disinformation

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/action-plan-disinformation-commission-contribution-european-council-13-14-december-2018_en

Here a thread with my summary of it https://twitter.com/rasmus_kleis/status/1070344396468613121

(Let's just say it didn't provide the €100m+ the HLG had suggested to combat "major challenge")

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Compared to the 6 key things?

1 Stopped calling it f*ke news
2 Focus on collaboration
3 Some € for research (~€2.5m has been given, more on its way) ()
4 Well... monthly PDFs?
5 No progress I can see
6 Minimal €€€ (remember, EU annual budget is €165b)
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Key part of collaboration part has been "code of practice" announced in Sep 2018, signed by some but not all platforms, advertisers, +others.

Wrote about it here https://twitter.com/rasmus_kleis/status/1070344396468613121

How has code worked out? Mixed. Better than nothing? At least for small member states.

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European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services ( #erga) assessment of how code has worked (which I largely agree with) call it "signficant step" but stresses need for greater transparency+detailed data, wonder if self-regulation is enough

https://erga-online.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ERGA-Report-on-Disinformation-Press-release.pdf

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Where do we go from here?

Since 2018 we've been in a bit of a holding pattern, every ~quarter @EU_Commission says basically the same: "our-initiatives-are-working-but-platforms-must-do-more"

But still little data from platforms, little data from authorities, no real €

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What does the public think?

@risj_oxford research suggest people are a) worried about what's real/fake online, b) see domestic politicians as most concerning source of false and misleading information, and c) see social media - esp Facebook - as most concerning platforms

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Point (b) above is important.

Domestic politicians part of these problems. And people know it. And in some countries some of these politicians don't like free expression/media.

Tools given to Merkel will be used by Orban too, tools given to Conte by the next Berlusconi.

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So I think the next steps have to focus on

1 Securing greater transparency + access to data
2 Incentivizing collaboration
3 Investing actual €€€ in strengthening independent media

(That's leaving aside wider range of policy discussions on competition, data, tax etc)

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If we don't get greater transparency+better data, we risk flying blind and let people mark their own homework

If we don't collaborate, we can't handle wicked problems

If policymakers don't invest €€€ in “major challenge for European democracies and societies”. Well...? 13/15

I've written elsewhere (w/ @rgorwa and Madeleine de Cock Buning) on some of the specific policy options available to policymakers on indepedent news media here https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/risj-review/what-can-be-done-digital-media-policy-options-europe-and-beyond

And support work of e.g. @mozilla Foundation on data sharing, https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/03/27/facebook-and-google-this-is-what-an-effective-ad-archive-api-looks-like/

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Finally, it's easy to write real nice declarations, but people out there are running real nations, the problems are complex, as is the politics.

What has been done in is limited, incremental, uneven, but hell of a lot more than other large, complex polities like

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