The European Commissioner in charge of the Security Union has called on the European Union to improve its protection against misinformation, particularly with regard to the forthcoming European elections. According to The Financial Times, Julian King has sent a letter to the Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, Mariya Gabriel, appealing for a robust approach.
In the letter, he particularly argues for greater transparency in the algorithms used by the platforms to promote certain information, in addition to limits on the aggregation of personal information for political purposes and the disclosure by tech companies of financial sources for "sponsored" content on their websites. According to the newspaper, the UK Commissioner would be in favour of a "more binding" approach than “self-regulation” alone, which would include, "clearly and carefully defined performance indicators".
Cambridge Analytica singled out
The letter dated 19 March, follows the Cambridge Analytica scandal (see EUROPE 11990). It should be recalled that this company has been accused by the whistleblower, Christopher Wylie, of having used the private data of 50 million Facebook users and of having played a "crucial role" in favour of Brexit. "Psychometric targeting activities" such as those used by Cambridge Analytica are just a "glimpse of the deeply disturbing effects that misinformation can have on the functioning of the liberal democracies", explains Julian King, who, according to the FT, enjoys the support of the other Commissioners.
A communication planned for end of April
The European Commission is currently preparing an initiative on misinformation planned for the end of April. This is in the context of the letter by Commissioner King, explains the Commission, will involve a contribution on the reflections carried out by the project team in charge of the fight against misinformation.
At this current juncture, there is not a great deal known about the contents of this initiative. It looks likely that it will involve a communication, therefore, a non-legislative paper. During the presentation of the experts' group’s conclusions on fake news and online misinformation (which called for self-regulation) on 12 March, Commissioner Mariya Gabriel highlighted her clear opposition to European legislation and stated, "Since the beginning, our multi-dimensional and multi-party approach is based on self-regulation. We have to remain coherent with the approach we established at the beginning: we said ‘give us the time to work on the definitions, measures that already exist and those upon which we can work together’". The Cambridge Analytica scandal, however, may push the Commission to taking a firmer line.
According to a recent Eurobarometer survey, 83% of people asked (around 26,000) believe that fake news is a danger to democracy (see EUROPE 11979). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)