Gendered disinformation: 6 reasons why liberal democracies need to respond to this threat Policy brief Gendered disinformation is a form of identity-based disinformation that threatens human rights worldwide. It undermines the digital and political rights, as well as the safety and security, of its targets. Ellen Judson from Demos explains what gendered disinformation is, how it impacts individuals and societies, and the challenges in combating it, drawing on case studies from Poland and the UK. It assesses how the UK and EU are responding to gendered disinformation, and sets out a plan of action for governments, platforms, media and civil society. By Ellen Judson
Gendered disinformation: How should democracies respond to this threat? Event recording Gendered disinformation is a form of violence particularly used against politically active women: the weaponisation of gendered stereotypes to attack and undermine women’s position in public life. How can we improve responses to gendered disinformation online? What can platforms do better? What government regulation may be needed, and are the current proposals on the table sufficient?
The Online Safety Bill: will it protect women online? Commentary ‘The safest place in the world to go online’. This is the ambition for the UK, set out by the Government in the 2019 Online Harms White Paper, and echoed over the next two years as the proposals evolved into the now Online Safety Bill: ‘a milestone in the Government’s fight to make the internet safe‘. While there has been scattered applause, many asked: what does it mean to be safe online? By Ellen Judson
What to do with the EU’s internal subversives Commentary Disinformation and misinformation thrive in uncertainty and secrecy. While growing awareness within the European Union of the threat posed by malign disinformation campaigns to undermine support for democratic values, and the EU project as a whole, has elicited a number of robust responses, these have mostly targeted external actors. Addressing threats from within Member States poses a more acute challenge, one that will require great thoughtfulness and delicacy to resolve, and require a unanimous collective effort. By Joanna Rohozińska
The fight against disinformation: A proposal for regulation from Spain Commentary The book #FakeYou shows that public and legislative policies used in the fight against disinformation, which have been pursued both in Spain and in other countries because of (or rather, with the excuse of) the so-called “new” phenomenon of fake news, often actually serve to distract from the real solution. By Simona Levi
State and corporate capture of the media threaten the quality of democracy in Greece Commentary The unsavoury link between oligarchs, the banking sector, the media and politics is what characterizes, in a nutshell, the state of the Greek media landscape. The prolonged financial crisis has had a decisive role in further hampering media freedom in the country, posing a real threat to the quality of democracy in Greece. By Stefanos Loukopoulos
Disinformation in Hungary: From fabricated news to discriminatory legislation Commentary Recently, the Hungarian ruling party and its media empire launched a massive campaign against independent policy analysts and opposition parties, accusing them of spreading anti-vaccination views. These campaigns follow a typical method of operation: they start from a single piece of information and end in some sort of discriminatory legislation against independent voices. By Patrik Szicherle and Péter Krekó
Publicly funded hate in Slovenia: A blueprint for disaster Commentary When discussing the issue of hate speech in the digital age, we often put the blame on content intermediaries such as Facebook or Twitter. But what happens when hateful speech in the form of party propaganda is indirectly or directly funded by the state, using public money? By Domen Savič
Drowning in disinformation: how homegrown state-sponsored disinformation threatens EU democracy Dossier Disinformation can potentially reach a vast audience, largely due to social networks’ recommendation algorithms. Discussions on disinformation in the EU often focus on external state actors such as Russia and China, or on conspiracy theorists and hate groups. Domestic sources of disinformation such as political parties and national governments, however, are often overlooked.
New rules for the digital social marketplace Commentary Europe is about to get a new digital law. It will change the way Google, Facebook and Amazon do business. The mechanisms that allow them to make billions are polarising society. We need robust new rules to protect our democracy. By Alexandra Geese