European Union: a new code of best practices against online disinformation

The EU intends to fight more effectively against fake news.

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Text by: Dominique Desaunay Follow

4 min

The European Commission has just published its new guidelines on how the code of good practice against online disinformation should be strengthened to become a more effective tool in the fight against infox.

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This code of digital best practices, which was implemented in October 2018 by Europe, has been signed by platforms such as Facebook, Google and Twitter.

But it is clear that most of the giants of the Web and social networks have finally failed to effectively control the continuous flow of infox for three years.

From hateful and manipulative speeches, to ideological or political recoveries, it is obviously the Covid-19 pandemic which alone has concentrated the worst of the conspiracy theories by carrying theses which have proved to be as toxic as they are absurd for Internet users. .

For example: 5G would spread the virus, vaccines will poison us, pharmaceutical companies are preparing a global dictatorship.

Thierry Breton: "

We have four objectives"

The Commission has therefore decided to strengthen its code of best practices against disinformation, this time accompanied by constraints and obligations for the web giants, declared on Wednesday May 26 Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner in charge of the internal market at a conference. presenting the entire device. " 

We are now discussing with our co-legislators to give obligations of means and results to all platforms. In order for us to have the capacity to control them and also to have sanctions for those who will not effectively follow the laws that will be included in this set of rules. So, we have four objectives, the first is a political objective, we see that there are obligations in the classic media during elections while they are absent in the digital information space. The second point is economic, content that often goes viral is pushed by platforms to aggregate advertising and generate income. The third part is educational,our children do not have the codes to protect themselves from disinformation and we obviously have to teach them to decipher the true from the false on social networks. The fourth is to protect our European democratic system by generally associating cybersecurity with it.

.

"

Self-regulation tool ...

Brussels also plans to present a project by the end of the year to regulate political advertising and the targeting of users based on their personal data. For the moment, the code presented by the

Commission is intended as a tool for self-regulation

, but it is intended to become more restrictive with the future digital legislation called the “Digital Services Act” that the EU intends to adopt next year.

This regulation will oblige digital platforms operating in Europe to follow these rules of conduct.

In the event of non-compliance, they would be fined up to 10% of their annual worldwide turnover.

This is far more than those provided for under the General Data Protection Regulation.

EU Commission to strengthen its #CodeOfPractice on #Disinformation:

* Stronger measures to demonetise disinfo

* Stronger commitment & greater participation

* More effective tools to flag disinfo

* Better access to data researchers

➡️ https://t.co/JzQ99MWfF2 #DigitalEU #EUvsDisinfo pic.twitter.com/THoy71M8Ka

- Defend Democracy (@DefendDemocracy) May 26, 2021

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