THE EUROPEAN APPROACH TO REGULATING DISINFORMATION

Abstract

This paper will present and analyze the European approach in combating disinformation, which has posed a major threat to democratic processes particularly after Brexit and the 2016 US presidential election. Social networks have emerged as a key factor that has allowed disinformation to spread at an unprecedented rate, damaging and polarizing the public sphere. Poorly informed citizens have less and less trust in the media and large political parties, and a society of post-truth is emerging as the post-modernist narrative has abolished great stories and brought cultural relativism (Cosentino, 2020). In these conditions, the European Union resorted to counteracting disinformation by focusing on large technology companies, the founders of social networks, and offering them a self-regulatory document, the Code of Practice on Disinformation (2018), two years after the US elections and Brexit, and a year before the European elections. The first encouraging results are noticed and announced in the reports submitted every month by the companies that signed the Code (Facebook, Google, Twitter, Mozilla, Microsoft, TikTok, and representatives of the advertising industry).