EU Launches Digital Initiative To Fight Disinformation

Euro­pean media is report­ing on the unveil­ing of the Democ­ra­cy Action Plan, a dig­i­tal effort estab­lished by the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion aimed at fight­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion, enforc­ing rules on fair com­pe­ti­tion in online pub­lic debates, and pro­tect­ing elec­tion integri­ty. Accord­ing to the EURACTIV report:

Decem­ber 3, 2020 The Euro­pean Com­mis­sion unveiled on Thurs­day (3 Decem­ber) its Democ­ra­cy Action Plan, the first piece of a dig­i­tal agen­da pack­age that aims to fight dis­in­for­ma­tion, enforce rules on fair com­pe­ti­tion in online pub­lic debates, and pro­tect the integri­ty of elec­tions.“ We do not want to cre­ate a min­istry of truth, free­dom of speech is essen­tial,” Věra Jourová, the EU Com­mis­sion­er for Val­ues and Trans­paren­cy said.“I will not sup­port any solu­tion that under­mines it but we also can­not have our soci­eties manip­u­lat­ed,” Jourová added.‘ From self-reg­u­la­tion’ to ‘co-reg­u­la­tion’ The plan fore­sees more oblig­a­tions and account­abil­i­ty for online plat­forms for dis­sem­i­nat­ing and ampli­fy­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion, false or mis­lead­ing con­tent inten­tion­al­ly spread for polit­i­cal or eco­nom­ic gain.“ We will move from self-reg­u­la­tion to co-reg­u­la­tion,” Jouro­va said. The exec­u­tive was dis­sat­is­fied with the results of the code of prac­tice against dis­in­for­ma­tion signed vol­un­tar­i­ly by the largest plat­forms like Face­book, Twit­ter, and Google. The forth­com­ing Dig­i­tal Ser­vices Act (DSA) will set hor­i­zon­tal rules for plat­forms includ­ing oblig­a­tions to adopt risk-mit­i­gat­ing mea­sures and an updat­ed code of practice.

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The Euro­pean Com­mis­sion (EC) is the exec­u­tive branch of the Euro­pean Union, respon­si­ble for propos­ing leg­is­la­tion, imple­ment­ing deci­sions, uphold­ing the EU treaties, and man­ag­ing the day-to-day busi­ness of the EU.