Regulating the internet: Changing policy to help curb the spread of disinformation
September 6, 2021 — DARE TO BE GREY & EU DISINFOLAB
With disinformation on the rise around the world, there are many organisations that are working on providing answers and solutions to stopping it. One of the solutions discussed is policy change. We spoke to the EU DisinfoLab through an online call and a written interview, to better understand the current landscape and how policy change could contribute to preventing disinformation.
EU DisinfoLab is an independent non-profit organisation focused on tackling sophisticated disinformation campaigns and documenting the disinformation phenomenon in Europe. As a small civil society organisation, they act as a facilitator within the counter disinformation community, putting emphasis on building partnerships and fostering collaboration between relevant initiatives in Europe.
“This is a once in a generation opportunity to mitigate disinformation on digital platforms.”
They found that often the latest research and insights “from the ground” do not find their way quickly enough to policymakers. EU DisinfoLab tries to bridge this gap with their own research and the expertise of their partner organisations outside of the “Brussels bubble”, and to channel the expertise of the community into a legal framework that protects our fundamental rights and offers sustainable solutions to disinformation.
Disinformation and the European Union
Disinformation is a multifaceted issue that should be understood as a symptom of a much broader information disorder powered by social media, from which many malicious actors benefit for various and sometimes interrelated purposes. This threatens the functioning of our digital public sphere, the core institutions and values of European Member States. As the COVID-19 health crisis and ‘infodemic’ have shown, the health and safety of individuals is at stake. Disinformation impinges on our right to freedom of expression by making it harder for us to access timely, relevant, and accurate information. It is also deeply connected to our civil and political rights, like the right to assembly and association: strategic disinformation campaigns blur the line between organic grassroots activism and manufactured deception.
“Disinformation impinges on our right to freedom of expression by making it harder for us to access timely, relevant, and accurate information.”
The EU DisinfoLab has written an Open Letter to the EU, urging them to make changes to the upcoming Digital Services Act (DSA), and giving recommendations on how the DSA can tackle disinformation. The DSA intends to update the European Union's legal framework, in particular on content moderation on social media platforms. Basically, this will mean new legislation regarding illegal content, advertising and disinformation. With over 50 co-signatories of the letter, from across Europe, Dare to be Grey is proud to be included.
Tackling disinformation through the Digital Services Act
Until now, the EU has avoided taking action that would deliver meaningful platform accountability, relying instead on self-regulatory initiatives, coordination mechanisms, and capacity building. This is a problem. The EU has primarily used soft law in the form of voluntary self-regulatory measures through the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation, unable to bring about significant change as they lacked any form of serious enforcement structure. The Digital Services Act legislative package - which will come alongside the Digital Markets Act - has a crucial role to play in addressing the information disorders in our online environment through regulation. The EU desperately needs this new approach to bring us out of the status quo of arbitrary decision-making by platforms, differing from month-to-month and country-to-country.
Importantly, the DSA also brings us the opportunity to tackle online harm to all of our fundamental rights, in addition to free expression and access to information. There is a tendency in Brussels to frame the question of legislating on disinformation as a simple trade-off between free expression and total control of our online environment, but this is an oversimplification. The DSA must appreciate the complexity of disinformation, which is not merely a content moderation issue, but malicious activity carried out by threat actors. It is a sophisticated and systemic threat requiring diverse skill sets and civil society expertise.
“There is a tendency in Brussels to frame the question of legislating on disinformation as a simple trade-off between free expression and total control of our online environment, but this is an oversimplification.”
Of course, a single regulation cannot eradicate the problem of information disorder, but this is a once in a generation opportunity to mitigate disinformation on digital platforms.
We are still at the beginning of a long legislative process. For example, the GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, took four years to be agreed on and adopted by all member states. At the moment, the proposed text of the Digital Services Act is being debated and amended in the Parliament, before going on to the Council: the Parliament, the Commission, and the Council must eventually come to an agreement on it. This current amendment period in the Parliament, stretching between September 1 and the final committee vote on November 8, is an important moment for civil society to raise their voices, and ensure their ideas are taken up in the legislative discussion between MEPs and the diplomats of Member States. After this amendment period, the process will still be open, but it will be more difficult to intervene.
How can you contribute?
The EU DisinfoLab told us that this will affect us as EU citizens in two ways: “If our proposals on platform accountability are accepted, it will be easier for individuals to flag disinformation and have it taken down. If our demands on democratic oversight get accepted, then individuals, through the intermediaries of NGOs or academic experts, will have greater leverage in how platforms are designed and engineered to ensure that, in the future, they respect our fundamental rights to security, to access to high-quality information, to privacy and freedom of expression.”
“It’s important that we let our voices be heard right now.”
The DSA already contains a number of strong elements for tackling disinformation, for instance safeguards to prevent over-removals of content, and explicit language on the need to tackle systemic risks tied to “information manipulation”. That said, the effectiveness of the DSA in tackling disinformation depends on the final version of the text that is adopted and how the regulation is implemented and enforced across the EU. Therefore it’s important that we let our voices be heard right now. You can do this by petitioning your MEPs to make changes to the DSA. Find the full list of all 705 MEPs here and search for the MEP of your country here.
We would like to thank the EU DisinfoLab for speaking to us about the DSA, and for their Open Letter encouraging the EU to tackle disinformation head on.
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