“Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is also a global information war, and we must respond”, said the Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová, as she opened a debate on disinformation in the European Parliament on Monday 7 October.
The debate on ‘The importance of public broadcasting, media pluralism and media independence in the face of fake news, populism and disinformation in the EU’ came as Russia was accused of buying the votes of more than 130,000 Moldovan citizens at the end of September for them to reject their country’s accession to the EU in a referendum scheduled for 20 October.
“Russia is still the world champion of disinformation”, said Věra Jourová, who is Czech, remembering “the manipulation and pressure exerted on [the Czechs] to just say and think the official doctrine” during the era of the Communist regime.
The European Commissioner pointed out that the fight against disinformation and the protection of media freedom are at the heart of the European Democracy Action Plan presented by the European Commission in 2020 (see EUROPE 12429/4).
The MEPs then confirmed that democracies today have to overcome the “manipulation of algorithms” (Ana Catarina Mendes, S&D, Portuguese) and fake news (Javier Zarzalejos, EPP, Spanish). Speaking on behalf of The Left Group, Italian MEP Gaetano Pedullà added that the manipulation was facilitated by “the concentration of the media system, from social networking platforms to major television and press centres”.
“The EU should be congratulated” for the entry into force of the regulation on media freedom (see EUROPE 13394/32), said Ana Catarina Mendes. Gaetano Pedullà felt that neither this regulation nor the “latest anti-SLAPP directive”, which is designed to combat SLAPP proceedings against journalists, had yet changed the situation.
The European legislation on digital services (DSA), one of whose priorities is to regulate the liability of platforms (see EUROPE 13484/10), also still needs to prove its worth; and the annual report on the rule of law needs to be strengthened, according to Ana Catarina Mendes. According to Laurence Farreng (Renew Europe, French), other areas for action include the transparency of algorithms and the labelling of content generated by artificial intelligence. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)