Report. 100 experts ask Spain and 70 other countries to fight against misinformation on social networks
New procedure. A Moncloa committee will monitor the media and pursue what it considers "disinformation"
Marietje Schaake
has been an MEP for
the Netherlands
for a decade (2009-2019), and was a member of the
Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).
She is currently the Director of International Policy at the
Stanford University
Center for Cyber Politics
,
among other positions.
She is also co-chair of the steering committee
of the Information and Democracy Forum,
which this Thursday presented an extensive report to 70 governments with recommendations to improve transparency and avoid misinformation on social media.
As an expert in disinformation, cyber politics and with a great practical experience in international politics, Schaake analyzes the objectives of the recently presented report and the situations that disinformation is generating in Europe and the US.
First of all, can we talk about disinformation campaigns in the US elections now? It is still too early to talk about disinformation.
It is true that for a long time there have been FBI reports, studies, reports from private companies, news related to Iran ... that spoke of possible disinformation campaigns in these elections.
And now they are talking about whether there has been disinformation in Florida in relation to the Latino vote or what we are experiencing with the complaints about an alleged theft of votes.
But it is still too early to say whether it is disinformation campaigns.
Much more research needs to be done. Is disinformation the greatest threat to democracy today? Perhaps not the greatest, but it is a great threat to democracy.
For example, what is happening now could pave the way for the problem to become something more serious in the future in the United States. Do these campaigns lead to violence or conflict? Globally there are many examples where disinformation has stopped turning into something violent, and in the United States we have the example of the extreme right-wing militias, which act by organizing around the facts that disinformation campaigns spread.
The same thing is happening with public health, we see it daily with the coronavirus pandemic and the disinformation that moves on the networks.
This could also end up generating violence. In Europe is this threat greater or less than in the US? There are many rights at stake in democracy that require our attention.
In Europe we have problems in many countries due to misinformation, as in those nations familiar with propaganda since times past: I mean mainly the Eastern countries.
We have already experienced some serious cases in Europe such as the cyber attack that Estonia suffered.
The difficulty is the same as always: document it and find out who is behind these attacks and disinformation campaigns.
Spain also suffered disinformation campaigns during the problem with the Catalan independentists. In their report they propose 250 measures to combat these campaigns to 70 governments, including those of the countries that signed up to the Information and Democracy Forum.
Do you think they are going to listen to you? The political coalitions make it very necessary to implement policies of pluralism, because now we are living a political situation with multipolarization, based on large coalitions.
That is why we hope that the measures that we propose in our report will be implemented, that is the objective.
It is urgent to do so.In Spain we have had a recent controversy with the Government's idea of creating a committee to fight against fake news.
In your opinion, should an autonomous body regulate these measures, or should it be left in the hands of governments? There are different ways to implement it, but ideally it would be through a public and independent regulatory body.
We already know that governments, if they can, avoid transparency.
Nor would it be necessary to create a new body, but it may be enough to entrust this task to one of those already existing in each country.In Spain, after announcing the creation of this committee and receiving criticism from the media and associations, the Government had The explanations he had given had to be nuanced several times. Keep in mind that not everything is worth fighting against misinformation.
If people do not trust the authorities, that society also becomes more vulnerable to misinformation.
That is why it is essential that people know that abuses are not being committed in the name of fighting disinformation that may ultimately lead to censorship campaigns.
That is why transparency is one of the fundamental pillars to achieve this trust from society. Is there sufficient transparency in Europe? Monitoring of transfers never ends, it must not be abandoned.
It is true that at the European level it can be said that there is considerable transparency, at least in terms of decision-making or expenses, although not so much in terms of the negotiations or meetings that take place.
But if you go down to the state level it is easy to find that there are many countries with transparency problems.
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