Talk:Best practices of self- and co-regulation of platforms towards a legal framework – WS 12 2021

Draft Concept note

version 11-April-2021

WORKSHOP 12 affluent to Focus Session 4:

The advent of new digital media has amplified the concerns about the spread of disinformation and hate online. Against these challenges, the European Union has relied on a certain number of tools to address the challenges. Primarily, the Commission has introduced self-regulatory instruments like codes of conducts and guidelines to nudge online platforms to introduce transparency and accountability mechanisms. The code of conduct on hate speech and the code of practice of disinformation are the paradigmatic example of this European strategy. Besides, the Recommendation on measures to effectively tackle illegal content online, adopted in 2018, can be considered general approach of the Commission to challenges of content moderation.

Two years have passed from the launch of that strategy and in June 2021 all the pieces are supposed to be operational: EDMO (the European observatory on disinformation), 6 national observatories and many others. Together with these initiatives, online platforms have put in place voluntary mechanisms as suggested by the code of conducts. However, even if the monitoring of the code of conducts has shown how the online platforms’ measures have contributed to mitigating the dissemination of disinformation and hate speech online, the decision on how to address these challenges is in the hands of private entities determining how to put in place voluntary mechanism to limit harmful content online. The covid-19 pandemic has shown how voluntary mechanisms have not been effective to reduce the spread of disinformation like conspiracy theories or false information about health treatments.

This phase of self-regulation is likely close to an end. In the last years, the Union has increasingly intervened in the framework of content moderation and platform governance. The Copyright Directive, the amendments to the Audiovisual Media Service Directive or the proposal for a Regulation on terrorist content are just some examples which have enriched the approach of the Union to online platforms and online speech. The Digital Services Act and the DMA (but also EDAP) will increasingly make the entire framework less reliant on self-regulation moving the perspective towards hard regulation characterized by procedural safeguards based on transparency and accountability.

EuroDIG 2021 would be the perfect timing to picture these changes in the European digital policy. Within an increasing proliferation of instruments to address online speech and platform governance, this workshop aims to make an assessment about self-regulating disinformation and hate-online and focus on the evolution of the European path in the next years. In particular, this workshop aims to address three primary points:

• the lesson learnt from self-regulation;
• the status quo of online platform voluntary mechanisms;
• the new phase of hard regulation and its relationship with self-regulations existing mechanisms.

NOTES FROM THE FIRST MEETING OF THE TEAM PREPARING WORKSHOP 12 At Eurodig 2021

28/4/2021

Attendees: EuroDIG secretariat and expert team:

• Yrjo Lansipuro
• Rainer Rodewald

Coordinators

• Giacomo Mazzone
• Giovanni De Gregorio

Team members: (registered in the mailing list)

• Vittorio Bertola (Open-xchange)
• Juuso Jarviniemi, college of Europe at Bruges

Team members: (not yet registered in the mailing list)

• Elena Perotti (WAN IFRA)
• Claire Pershan (Policy Coordinator, EU DisinfoLab)

Guest:

• Colin Kurre (OFCOM UK)

Excused:

• GFMD (Jordan Higgins)
• Aleksandra Ivankovic

NB: team members that have not yet joined the list (Claire, Elena, Jordan), are invited to do so

POINT DISCUSSED:

• WS 12 as part of the media related events at EuroDIG 2021 and as affluent to FS4
• Concept note
• Profiles of persons/roles/institutions/bodies that we would to invite to speak
• Possible names of speakers corresponding to such profiles
• Date of the next meeting
• Background documents to be indicated in the wiki as literature contributing to the workshop

ON WS 12 AS PART OF THE MEDIA RELATED EVENTS AT EURODIG 2021 AND AS AFFLUENT TO FS4

YL explains that WS 12 is part of other 4 workshops that will contribute to feed the discussion of Focus Session 4, that as aim to create a trusted media sphere in Europe. Contribution expected by WS12 is to reflect on the success and the limits of self-regulatory processes. VB underlines that there are other workshops in the programme, not contributing to FS4, that have relations with the discussions happening in WS12, as for instance WS1 of which he is coordinator. The same for DSA-DMA discussions.

ON CONCEPT NOTE (see document above)

The document was briefly presented by Giovanni De Gregorio and approved by the participants as starting base for the discussion.

• Written remarks to the concept note has to be sent before the next meeting of WS12 team

ON PROFILES OF PERSONS/ROLES/INSTITUTIONS/BODIES THAT WE WOULD TO INVITE TO SPEAK According to the concept note, WS12 would need to involve different kind of stakeholders, such as:

A. Academia researchers having worked on self regulation experiences and their results

B. Regulators and Legislators that have put in place code of practices or standards or tools for self and co-regulation

C. Civil Society organizations dealing with these experiences and having a say on the current results

D. Self regulation Experiences from Internet Platforms

ON POSSIBLE NAMES OF SPEAKERS CORRESPONDING TO SUCH PROFILES

Group A

(suggested names)

• GDRH Global network of HR
• EU DisinfoLab suggests VUB Trisha Meyer's research with EU DisinfoLab GDRH Global network of HR
• Mathias Ketterman made a research on COVID and misinformation

Group B

(suggested names)

• EDMO
• ERGA has published reports or EU on the results of Code of self-regulation adopted by Internet Platforms in front of the EC.
• European Commission (Christina Stumpf)
• OFCOM has publishes researches on how code of practices have worked (https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/212861/tools-for-online-regulation.pdf)

Group C

(suggested names)

• EP: WAN IFRA has some example of content moderation in traditional media
• EU disinformation or any member having contributed to the EU consultation

Group D

• FaceBook oversight board / google right to be forgotten / Twitter bird watch / Tik Tok Safety council

YL informed that direct contact is established with the secretariat of the Facebook Oversight Board.

DATE OF THE NEXT MEETING

Next meeting of the team will take place in more or less 10 days. Suggested date: Monday 10/5 same time (4-5 PM CET), through a zoom meeting called by Secretariat.

BACKGROUND DOCUMENTS TO PUBLISH ON THE WIKI AS LITERATURE CONTRIBUTING TO THE WORKSHOP

• (suggested by Claire Pershan) https://www.disinfo.eu/publications/one-year-onward-platform-responses-to-covid-19-and-us-elections-disinformation-in-review
• About: Tik Tok Safety advisory council https://uk.news.yahoo.com/tiktok-creates-european-safety-advisory-000100232.html (suggested by Giovanni De Gregorio)
• GDHRN https://leibniz-hbi.de/uploads/media/default/cms/media/fi1c9mo_GDHRNet_Working%20Paper1.pdf (suggested by Elena Perotti)
• https://onezero.medium.com/twitter-cribs-an-idea-from-wikipedia-9e0d98b90334 (suggested by Colin Kurre)
• https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/212861/tools-for-online-regulation.pdf

USEFUL WEBSITES:

• Yrjo Lansipuro : https://edmo.eu/
• giovannidegregorio : https://gdhrnet.eu/