The European Union's approach toward misinformation

Abstract

This dissertation is an evaluation on the spread of online misinformation as a socio-political phenomenon in relation to the European Union. Particularly it will discuss the threats posed by the spread of misinformation on European social media pages and what the European institutions are doing in order to contrast it, taking the 2019 European Parliament elections as case study. The reason why this topic was chosen is due to its growing importance in the political scenario which is caused by its potential effects on the voting behaviours of citizens of democratic countries. In fact, the main issue raised by misinformation is its ability to lead to a widespread epistemic dysfunction among individuals who have been exposed to it. This can, consequentially, have an impact on the society of which such individuals make part and, therefore, on its governance. This is particularly evident in democracies, where the legitimacy to the government is given by the people following a vote. As the vote is based on their perception of certain issues and proposals, false information can mislead them into adopting certain positions which could be different than those they would take if they had been correctly informed. Therefore, false information, can erode democracy by simply altering the basis on which the system lies: the conscious free vote of the citizen. The thesis will also take in consideration misinformation used as an instrument for hybrid war by determined organizations or third countries. False information can, in fact, have a damaging effect on a societal network that could lead to a destabilization of the country that has been targeted. The European Union, in order to protect the genuineness of its democratic process from misleading information, has been active in working to prevent the creation and divulgation of misinformation in Europe. However, as these spread almost uncontrolled on online platforms, this task turned into a real test for the European Institutions, who have to provide always updated strategies and mechanisms to keep up with the development of the virtual world and the different modus operandi of misinformation creators. The thesis will, therefore analyse the different strategies adopted by the EU before the 2019 European Parliament elections in order to critically assess their efficiency when compared to the typology and amount of misinformation material divulgated in EU countries before the elections. The methodology used in this thesis will be based on an analysis of multiple reports in order to determine the quantity of misinformation material that was found on European social media pages in the period before the 2019 European Parliament elections. The results will then be compared to the instruments available to European Institutions to fight this phenomenon in the same period in order to critically evaluate their efficiency. It will be shown how the period prior the 2019 European Parliament elections has been characterized by an increase in political misinformation content found on a multiplicity of social media creating a risk for the 2019 European Parliament elections. Despite the threat posed by this issue, the defensive strategies adopted by the EU in the years preceding the elections have proven to be largely successful in identifying and neutralizing misleading informational content online.