{"id":874576,"date":"2019-04-08T12:07:31","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T07:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/?p=874576"},"modified":"2019-04-08T12:07:31","modified_gmt":"2019-04-08T07:07:31","slug":"e-u-on-fake-news-alert-as-continent-prepares-to-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/e-u-on-fake-news-alert-as-continent-prepares-to-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"E.U. on Fake News Alert as Continent Prepares to Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"
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European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel. Emmanuel Dunand\u2014AFP<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Brussels fears online disinformation could fuel populist narratives in upcoming polls<\/h6>\n

Will Russian trolls, American social media giants and opportunistic fake news merchants combine to poison Europe\u2019s political landscape ahead of May\u2019s continent-wide election?<\/p>\n

Brussels fears that online disinformation will fuel the populist wave officials believe skewed the Brexit referendum and carried Donald Trump all the way to the White House. \u201cThere are external anti-European forces, which are seeking\u2014openly or secretly\u2014to influence the democratic choices of Europeans,\u201d E.U. leader Donald Tusk warned recently. This was, he claimed, also \u201cthe case with Brexit and a number of election campaigns across Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between May 23 and 26, European voters will go to the polls to choose around 700 MEPs to sit in the Strasbourg E.U. parliament and oversee continent-wide legislation.<\/p>\n

In the final weeks of the campaign, officials are on alert fearing that opponents\u2014including Moscow\u2014will attempt to spread fake news, amplified by viral social media. This could in turn boost support for various populist insurgent parties, deepen existing divisions in the electorate and undermine faith in democracy or E.U. institutions.<\/p>\n

Some go as far as to call the phenomenon a state-led attack. \u201cThere is strong evidence pointing to Russia as a primary source of disinformation in Europe,\u201d said E.U. Commission vice-president and former Estonian premier Andrus Ansip. \u201cDisinformation is part of Russia\u2019s military doctrine and its strategy to divide and weaken the West,\u201d he warned, in December.<\/p>\n

Public trust in national and E.U. institutions and in the so-called mainstream media is already low, and web-users seeking cash from advertising clicks have found a market for fake news. Add to this state-led covert propaganda and the viral effect of U.S.-based media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google\u2019s YouTube and you have a recipe for disruption.<\/p>\n

Mariya Gabriel, E.U. commissioner for the digital economy, brands this a an \u201cinvisible scourge\u201d that \u201cintrudes into the lives of our citizens and influences our opinions and decision-making.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to the perceived threat, the E.U. Commission has drawn up guidelines for member states, calling on them to support quality journalism or to work with independent fact-checkers. In March, it also set up an \u201cearly warning system,\u201d so capitals can share information on \u201ccoordinated attempts by foreign actors to manipulate\u201d the democratic debate in real time.<\/p>\n

The European External Action Service (EEAS), the Commission\u2019s foreign affairs arm, has a team of around 15, to detect and analyze misinformation campaigns targeting the E.U. Their website, \u201cE.U. vs disinformation\u201d (https:\/\/euvsdisinfo.eu\/), claims credit for refuting more than 5,000 items of fake news, mainly related to Russia. But the unit\u2019s resources remain modest.<\/p>\n

And, as Paul Butcher of think tank European Policy Center observes, involving state intelligence services or ministries like the EEAS in the campaign can be counterproductive. This fuels suspicions of censorship and plays \u201cinto narratives of censorship and a culture war between \u2018the establishment\u2019 and \u2018the people\u2019,\u201d he said, in a recent report.<\/p>\n

Better than state-led counter-propaganda, he said, \u201cstructural resistance to disinformation can be built up through the efforts of civil society, NGOs and the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent months, European authorities have increased calls for online platforms to be more accountable for the content they push in front of millions of eyeballs. While some member states, such as France, have decided to legislate, the Commission is talking to internet giants.<\/p>\n

Late last year Facebook, Google and Twitter signed a code of best practice with the Brussels authorities\u2014\u201ca world first,\u201d according to Gabriel.<\/p>\n

Under the code, the industry committed to transparency in political advertising, to close false accounts and to \u201cdemonetize misinformation providers\u201d\u2014to stop paid adverts on suspect sites. The initiative has produced results, but the firewall of truth is far from impregnable, as the Commission itself admits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brussels fears online disinformation could fuel populist narratives in upcoming polls<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":874577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,54],"tags":[346,30886,19921,12755,473,30885,158,19887,78,1644,191,1279,9767,16990,2750],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/EU-commissioner.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874576"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}