Disinformation in the EU is “tackled, but not tamed", said the European Court of Auditors on Thursday 3 June at the end of a month-long audit of the European Action Plan against Disinformation (see EUROPE 12153/8).
Although the plan has made progress, the record remains mixed. The institution attributes this to the fact that the plan has not been updated since 2018 in the face of constant changes in the tactics, actors, and technologies of disinformation.
The report also points to incomplete provisions, including the lack of measures to ensure that any EU response to disinformation is well-coordinated.
On this point, the Court notes, for example, that the Rapid Alert System (RAS) introduced by the plan facilitated the sharing of information between the EU27, but “it had not issued alerts at the time of the audit and has not coordinated common attribution and response as initially envisaged”.
However, several other provisions that were considered positive revealed important shortcomings. This is particularly true of the three Task Forces of the European External Action Service: the Court considers that they have improved the EU’s capacity to respond to disinformation, but regrets that they are not sufficiently evaluated nor provided with more financial resources.
Similarly, while the institution considers the Code of Practice on Disinformation to be an “pioneering framework”, it points out that it has not fulfilled its objective of holding online platforms to account for their actions against disinformation. The problem had also been identified by the European Commission, which is working on a revision of the text (see EUROPE 12727/12).
The report also gives a mixed opinion on the EUvsDisinfo project (see EUROPE 12450/13). “Its placement inside the [European External Action Service] raises some questions about its independence and ultimate purpose, as it could be perceived as representing the EU’s official position”, the Court says.
The institution also points to the lack of a media literacy strategy that takes into account the fight against disinformation.
It also calls on the Commission to take steps to ensure that its European Digital Media Observatory—launched a year ago (see EUROPE 12498/11)—can fulfil its objectives. This is because the project, with a €2.5-million budget, “attracted limited interest from media literacy experts and fact-checkers”, the report says.
Despite the implementation of this and several other measures, which are “broadly on track”, some of the expected results have not been achieved, the Court concludes, pointing out the lack of monitoring and evaluation of the plan’s implementation.
For the full report: https://bit.ly/3if7XB3 (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)