Talk:Information disorder: causes, risks and remedies. – PL 02 2018

Coordination Meeting 17/05/2018

You can see and comment on the discussion through this googledoc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T0BNCbkYIoYH81_N3HhaMIc8BZnI0IDvRdU_XR8ckps/edit?usp=sharing

Coordination Meeting 2/05/2018

You can see and comment on the discussion through this googledoc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10W49vKaGi4JX7zXAFdigTAqgaXIKSUsAxqNp009fKlw/edit?usp=sharing

Getting started

To start off the discussions the following two questions were asked:

1) what is new in this area since the last EuroDIG (and IGF), and 2) what are the negative trends and what is done to counter them, to redeem the ills and to enhance trust in the social media?

Some preliminary topics that were addressed prior to EuroDIG by the org team in emails to the Focal Point including the desire to discuss:

• The High Level Group (EU) On Fake News that produced a strategy to combat Fake News
• Countries legislating on Fake News
• The upcoming European Parliament elections
• Chatbots
• Fact checking and source verification

Speaker Suggestions

• One of the experts of the EU High Level Expert Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation
• Representative of a social media platform
• Government offficials
• Media representatives
• An expert in media literacy education
• Paolo Cesarini, Head of Unit at DG Connect, European Commission

Scope of the session

• Livia Walpen: Currently, the working title is “remedies to social media problems: How to cope with fake news and other ills”. I am asking myself what is meant by “other ills”. Do we also want to include e.g. data protection issues (thinking of the most recent Cambridge Analytica's scandal), or should we focus on misinformation? It would be good to clearly define the scope of the session.
• Jutta Croll: From our perspective I would like to add the aspect of counter narratives. Various desk research studies give evidence of the difference in efficiency between counter measures initiated by government and those arising from the social community. My colleagues and I have done an analysis of more than 600 cases in the German speaking area over the last year that substantiates the aforementioned research results with highly topical examples. Based on this analysis we can give prove that community initiated counter narratives are a worthwhile third approach to complement strategies of critical literacy training and legislative instruments to counteract hate speech, fake news and false information. You may have heard that the German legislation against hate speech and fake news of 2017 came hugely under pressure claiming it was an infringement of freedom of speech on the one hand and it gives legal tasks in the hands of platform providers on the other. It would be very interesting to learn form the legislative approaches in other countries. The possible role that blockchain technology might play to fight fake news. Perhaps we could also build on that?
• Charlotte Altenhoener-Dion: The title ‘Remedies to social media problems: How to cope with fake news and other ills’ is very wide. I believe that more focus will make the session more attractive and boost attendance. It also seems to suggest that ‘fake news’ is only a problem of social media (which it is not of course). Maybe we could concentrate on what social media are doing/could do to address the negative effects of online disinformation campaigns? A working title could be something short like ‘Online disinformation: what to do?’ or the like…
• Charlotte Altenhoener-Dion: Media and information literacy skills are clearly very important and it is very welcome that promotion through formal and informal education systems is now prioritised at national and international level alike. However, they are no panacea and we should keep in mind that responses must be truly comprehensive. I very much agree with the points made on counter narratives and the importance of having community representatives participate actively in public debate online.
• Narine Khachatryan: While I agree that media literacy cannot be regarded as a panacea, yet it needs to be explained to the audience why, since that assumption may not be evident to the audience. Is it because traditional media literacy curricula has become outdated in a so called 'platform society' and we need new 'innovative' programs in media literacy? Is it because formal and non-formal education usually envisage young people, while adults constitute those parts of society which are the most 'inert' in learning new things and believe they do not need training, especially in media literacy? If verification and fact-checking is a slow process and proved to be ineffective in everyday media consumption, wouldn't source-checking require basic information literacy skills (part and parcel of media literacy)? What 'techniques' are utilized by those groups (hackers and others) who are behind spreading misinformation, propaganda, fake news? Why are they able to fool literate and even critically thinking adults? Media literacy is not a panacea, yes, but even to understand why it is not, one needs to be media literate. I fully agree on the points made by Jutta on counter narratives, and would add that to create effective narratives people need to be able to construct and deconstruct messages effectively (again media literacy skills).
• Stephanie Matt: [The European Commission will produce a] Communication that will be adopted on 25th April 2018. The objective is to present and discuss this Communication at EuroDig

How to redeem the ills

• Livia Walpen: One aspect I already mentioned is critical digital literacy. Another one is fact-checking, as Nadia rightly stated. Several institutions (among others also traditional media actors) have started to engage in fact-checking activities (e.g. France 24 and Euractiv, https://fullfact.org/, Les Décodeurs, Pagella Politica, https://www.factcheck.org/). Recently, I also learned about the important role of official statistics in making true and reliable information available to society (see e.g. the conference on “Truth in numbers - The role of data in a world of fact, fiction and everything in between”). Would this aspect be something to include in our session? And finally there is of course the interesting question of legislation: Should misinformation be regulated? And if yes, how? (A bill that makes fake news punishable by up to six years in prison is probably not the right answer…).
• Narine Khachatryan: [The Final report of the High Level Expert Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation] demonstrates that policy makers will need to include, consider and emphasize the importance of media literacy education, as widely as possible as an important strategy to withstand all sorts of disinformation and "other ills of the society". Media literacy as a part of formal and non-formal education, I can bring up many valuable local examples of relevant educational projects and their positive outcomes.