Fake news : how different EU member states have sought to counter it

Abstract

Fake news is a system of information that misleads society, misrepresents reality and causes damage to the communication system itself. The spread of fake news has increasingly become a matter of concern for states in Europe and beyond. This has recently been brought to the fore by the Covid-19 global pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. The lack of an agreed upon definition of fake news has meant that at times there has not been a clear direction about how to address it. This thesis analyses how the EU has addressed the issue of fake news. A review of EU and Council of Europe policy documents has identified the most significant developments in the efforts to combat fake news: a High-Level Expert Group, the Code of Practice on Disinformation, that highlighted the need for commitments of self-regulation by the social media companies and the enforcement measures to be implemented by the Commission; and the Action Plan against Disinformation, that established the need for Member States to combat together the spread of disinformation through shared resources and joint responses, and to improve societal resilience. More recently the issue of fake news has been addressed through the publication of the EU Digital Services Act which will come into force in 2024, and will impose stricter guidelines on social media companies to combat fake news. Through a comparative review of the strategies adopted by a number of EU Member States, namely France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden, and the UK, this thesis shows that there are a number of commonalities in the approaches taken by these countries to combat fake news. These are self-regulation, shared regulation, technological tools, fact-checkers, media education and the promotion of professional journalism. There seems to be always the tight-rope that needs to be walked between the need to ensure that reliable and truthful news are offered to citizens and ensuring that media companies and opinion-makers are guaranteed full freedom of expression. This can be achieved through better systematic media education, the harnessing of technological advances, and the professional education of journalists.