Disinformation and online platforms
The Commission presents measures to tackle disinformation online and new rules for the online platforms
The Commission presented today measures to tackle disinformation online and new rules for the online platforms to ensure the protection of European values and security.
The recent Facebook/Cambridge Analytica revelations demonstrated exactly how personal data can be exploited in electoral contexts, and are a timely reminder that more is needed to secure resilient democratic processes.
To address these concerns, the Commission proposed a series of measures to tackle disinformation online. By July, and as a first step, online platforms should develop and follow a common Code of Practice with the aim of ensuring transparency about sponsored content; in particular political advertising, as well as restricting targeting options for political advertising and reducing revenues for purveyors of disinformation. The aim is to provide greater clarity about the functioning of algorithms and enabling third-party verification and to make it easier for users to discover and access different news sources representing alternative viewpoints. The current trends will also be addressed by introducing measures to identify and close fake accounts and to tackle the issue of automatic bots and enabling fact-checkers, researchers and public authorities to continuously monitor online disinformation.
The Commission proposed an independent European network of fact-checkers which will establish common working methods, exchange best practices, and work to achieve the broadest possible coverage of factual corrections across the EU. The proposal also foresees a secure European online platform on disinformation to support the network of fact-checkers and relevant academic researchers with cross-border data collection and analysis, as well as access to EU-wide data.
The new rules for the online platforms will improve the functioning of the Digital Single Market and follow President Juncker's State of the Union announcements of 13 September 2017 to "safeguard a fair, predictable, sustainable and trusted business environment in the online economy". The aim of the new rules is to create a fair, transparent and predictable business environment for smaller businesses and traders when using online platforms. Businesses such as hotels, traders selling online, app developers, and other similar companies that rely on search engines for attracting internet traffic to their websites are amongst those who will benefit from the new rules.
Providers of online intermediation services must ensure that their terms and conditions for professional users are easily understandable and easily available. This includes setting out in advance the possible reasons why a professional user may be delisted or suspended from a platform. Providers also have to respect a reasonable minimum notice period for implementing changes to the terms and conditions.
Providers of online intermediation services are required to set up an internal complaint-handling system. To facilitate out-of-court dispute resolution, all providers of online intermediation services will have to list in their terms and conditions the independent and qualified mediators they are willing to work with in good faith to resolve disputes. The Commission's proposal foresees the creation of an EU Observatory to monitor the impact of the new rules. The Observatory would monitor current as well as emerging issues and opportunities in the digital economy, with a view to enabling the Commission to follow up on today's legislative proposal if appropriate. Particular attention will be paid to developments in policy and regulatory approaches all over Europe.
Related links
Press release - Tackling online disinformation
Factsheet: Tackling the spread of disinformation online