Six key points from the EU Commission’s new report on disinformation | Poynter

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Six key points from the EU Commission’s new report on disinformation | Poynter
By Poynter Staff · March 12, 2018
This article was reposted from Medium with the permission of its authors. Read the original version in English, Spanish 
and French.

Today the EU Commission released the final report from the High Level Expert Group on Fake News, entitled “A 
Multi-Dimensional Approach to Disinformation”. The report, a document supported by a number of different stakeholders, 
including the largest technology companies, journalists, fact-checkers, academics and representatives from civil 
society has a number of important attributes including: important definitional work rejecting the use of the phrase 
‘fake news’; an emphasis on freedom of expression as a fundamental right; a clear rejection of any attempt to censor 
content; a call for efforts to counter interference in elections; a commitment by tech platforms to share data; calls 
for investment in media and information literacy and comprehensive evaluations of these efforts; as well as 
cross-border research into the scale and impact of disinformation.

Most importantly, it lays out a process of continued research as threats evolve, and proposes mechanisms for ongoing 
review and evaluation of the recommendations outlined in the report.

The Group was announced on January 12. Its 39 members represented a wide range of different experts and stakeholders 
from almost all of the 28 member countries of the EU. The Group was expertly chaired by Madeleine de Cock Buning, who 
had the unenviable task of finding common ground among a very diverse group of viewpoints.

We are five members of the group, dedicated to fact-checking, verification and studying disinformation, hailing from 
Denmark, France, Italy, Spain and the UK (See our bios below). We do not think that the report is perfect; 
collaboratively editing and agreeing on a document like this in such a short span of time was always going to require 
compromise from everyone involved.

It is however a significant achievement.

The report is inclusive, collaborative and demands that the European Commission take concrete steps in furthering our 
understanding of the current information landscape, while also underlining the dangers that can arise from knee-jerk 
regulatory responses. As stated in the report, “most of the responses will be of a non-regulatory character” and, if 
deployed at all, regulation “need[s] to be based on very precise definitions addressing the causes of the 
disinformation problems at hand, ensure due process, as well as accountability and proportionality”.

While disinformation is clearly a problem, its scale and impact, associated agents and infrastructures of amplification 
have not been adequately investigated or examined. Without that evidence base, concrete interventions — beyond 
additional research and continued support for educational initiatives, provided they are clearly evaluated — should not 
be implemented.

Additionally, while most of the focus is rightly on the impact on technology of aiding the cheap and immediate creation 
and spread of disinformation, the report clearly states that “[disinformation]is a multifaceted problem, does not have 
one single root cause, and thus does not have one single solution … the problem also involves some political actors, 
news media, and civil society actors.”

At a time when many political bodies seem to believe that the solution to online disinformation is one simple ‘fake 
news’ law away, the report clearly spells out that it is not. It urges the need for caution and is sceptical 
particularly of any regulation of content.

Ultimately, the report includes a number of aspects that we think will make a significant contribution to the debate, 
our evidence base and our capacity to intervene, including:

A clear and unequivocal abandonment of the term “fake news,” which the European Commission was originally using. This 
is important because it is inadequate in explaining the complexity of the situation, and leads to confusion in the way 
researchers discuss the issue, it is reported on in the media, and discussed by policy-makers.
Clearly calls for significant financial support for independent news media, fact- and source-checking, and media and 
information literacy, with an emphasis on independent initiatives, free from potential interference from public 
authorities or from technology companies who might be tempted to use such projects as public relations exercises.
Calls for platforms to share data are including throughout the text. While the fact-checking and verification community 
has been calling for greater data-sharing for years, this instance is particularly significant because it has been 
signed by Google, Facebook and Twitter. They have now taken a public commitment to work with researchers who can 
independently assess the spread and impact of disinformation. The report specifically calls on major technology 
companies to provide data that would allow the independent assessment of efforts like Google’s fact-check tags, 
Facebook’s use of fact-checks as Related Articles or the downgrading of disinformation in the News Feed.
Calls for public authorities at all EU levels to share data promptly and efficiently when it is requested by 
trustworthy fact-checking organisations — and correct promptly when appropriate. This recognizes that political actors 
and institutions have a crucial role to play in improving the accuracy of our information ecosystem.
The creation of a network of Research Centers focused on studying disinformation across the EU. Our current knowledge 
based is almost entirely focused on the United States data and it’s vital that the EU have more data from cross-border 
studies to understand the differences and nuances in the scope, scale and impact of disinformation across the 28 Member 
States.
The insistence on a collaborative approach involving all relevant stakeholders, with a structured process ahead that 
will document progress made and expose anyone not taking their responsibilities seriously.
The report is also only the start of a process. The part of the report that we expect will receive the most attention 
is the proposed Code of Practice, which includes 10 suggested principles aimed specifically at the technology 
companies. The High Level Group has recommended the creation of a multi-stakeholder Coalition that will ensure the 
implementation and continuous monitoring and review. The report lays out an ambitious timetable for this evaluation.

This report will undoubtedly be scrutinised, very likely line by line, but given the large and diverse group of 
participants, the report should be read as a compromise document. However as five people who are steeped in this issue 
and spend every day thinking deeply about disinformation, we think it provides an important starting point from which 
all actors involved in this problem can work together. This is in many ways more important for us than whether it is a 
concise and intellectually precise document.

After eighteen months of back to back conferences and discussions on this subject, it is time that we make a 
significant investment in independent research, media and information literacy projects and their evaluation. It is 
time we stopped just talking and started acting. If this report begins that process, we will hopefully look back and 
see this moment as an important one in the collective response to disinformation.

Author bios: Clara Jiménez Cruz is based in Spain, where she co-directs the online verification and debunking 
initiative Maldito Bulo (Maldita.es). Grégoire Lemarchand is based in Paris where he is AFP’s deputy editor in chief 
and manages AFP’s contribution to Facebook’s Third Party Fact-Checking Project. Alexios Mantzarlis is the Director of 
the International Fact-Checking Network based at the Poynter Institute in Florida, where he manages the global 
fact-checking community including the verification of fact-checking organizations. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen is Director of 
Research at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University where he and his team researchers 
news, media, and disinformation. Claire Wardle leads First Draft, a project of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard 
University’s Kennedy School of Government co-ordinating a global verification community, including running 
collaborative social monitoring and debunking projects.




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