From Diana Wallis, President of the Board of Directors of EU DisinfoLab. This column was originally published on Euractiv.
EU lawmakers are calling on platforms to do more in response to disinformation in Ukraine. However, current legislative discussions will see them do less.
The war in Ukraine is being waged across digital services and social media platforms, with disinformation and propaganda at its core. In just a few weeks, Spanish fact-checker Maldita.es has already listed more than 750 fact-checks produced to counter disinformation articles.
EU institutions are officially calling on tech platforms to step up their efforts to tackle disinformation. On March 10, MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, chair of the parliamentary special committee on foreign interference, and 9 other MEPs called for “clear rules” and “a structural approach to disinformation” in the Digital Services Act (DSA).
However, despite their statements, EU lawmakers are failing to present a regulatory framework that matches their public positions. The current proposal on the table would actually provide incentives for platforms to do less, not more.
A key element currently at risk is access to the user redress mechanism provided for by Article 17. This new feature allows users to challenge content moderation decisions taken against them by platforms; unfortunately, as currently proposed by a compromise, it would only grant access to users whose content has been removed.
To illustrate this point, many people were recently horrified by the story of a pregnant woman in Mariupol who was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance after Russia bombed a maternity hospital. Russian officials and conspiracy theorists have notoriously distorted the event, claiming that it was staged and that the woman was an actress. While some of these claims have been debunked, this misinformation about the incident continues to spread.
In this case, the compromise means that only those who perpetrate disinformation, claiming it was staged, will have the right to complain about a platform’s moderation of their content. So in a sense, the more platforms moderate content, the more they increase the risk of challenge. So there is less incentive for them to moderate more content.
The compromise proposal would further benefit platforms and their business model, along with abusers of their service, while dangerously ignoring the needs of users who are exposed to or would legitimately want to challenge this disinformation. The only way to counter disinformation is to allow more open access to challenge content moderation decisions in accordance with the platform’s own policies and rules that ensure equal enforcement, regardless of whether or not they are taking action to remove the content.
If Facebook says it is labeling all Russian state information, should we legally challenge why in 91% of cases it did not do so? If Instagram bans ads including claims debunked by fact-checkers, should we understand on what basis it allowed advertising on alleged US biolabs in Ukraine?
Since November, the Council has agreed in compromise texts to extend this possibility to challenge all decisions by platforms. This includes decisions not to take action on content that violates their terms and conditions, a key demand from many civil society actors who are supporting this vision.
We do not want a regulation that relies on Commission President Von der Leyen’s call by Meta to crack down on disinformation. This is unsustainable as it also gives full credence to platforms’ press releases trumpeting what they claim to do. What we need most is enhanced access to user redress mechanisms in Article 17, as proposed by the Council. Only this will bring public accountability to private decision-making.