In the EU’s fight against fake news, disinformation is winning

In the EU’s fight against fake news, disinformation is winning

6 years ago
Anonymous $qrGo_Xv_Cm

https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/06/09/in-the-eus-fight-against-fake-news-disinformation-is-winning/

It hasn’t even been a month since Brussels was hyped about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg being (supposedly) grilled by the European Parliament. COO Sheryl Sandberg is next on the agenda, rumored to be questioned by MEPs in June. Simultaneously, for five months now the European Commission has been hard at work within their High Level Expert Group on Fake News (HLEG), tasked with “advising on all issues arising in the context of fake information spread across traditional and social media.” It looks like the abuse of social media platforms for political manipulation is as hot on the EU’s agenda as it gets.

Unfortunately, not all is as it seems. The Cambridge Analytica scandal has proven that the Brussels dogma of self-regulation as the way to go isn’t up for the challenge. Even though sometimes companies may indeed know best, Facebook failed to safeguard our democratic processes from serious violations. But for some reason, the Commission still holds its faith in self-regulation as strongly as ever.