People in the EU want more to be done in the fight against the deliberate spreading of untrue and fake content on the Internet. Overall, 85 percent of the EU’s citizens feel that policymakers should do more to prevent the spread of disinformation, while 89 percent say that the operators of social media platforms should take more action as well. The desire for a greater response goes hand in hand with a clear recognition of the problem among people living in the EU. Those are the findings from a new study by our Upgrade Democracy project. According to the study, more than one in two respondents (54 percent) are often or very often unsure whether the information they find on the Internet is true, while 39 percent say they are aware of having encountered disinformation.
Aha, and who decides what is true and what isn’t? Big Brother?
Yes, but not a priority. Fix that thing in Italy before everything else.
“Disinformation bad” from the same people who told us Iraq had WMD.
Do they? Or does government say that they do?
It’s my god given right to lie to people online and make up source that I know they’re too lazy to look for or otherwise scrutinize in any meaningful capacity. The EU will not take this from me, it will fail.
Do we want ‘truth’ to be decided by our governments instead of, idk, experts and specialists?
Disinformation, riiight
If we want to counter disinformation we can start by shutting off access to the European Commision’s youtube channel. When discussing their censorship act Margrethe Vestager ironically makes use of disinformation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eovkTtYljTM&ab_channel=EuropeanCommission
She claims the number of anti-semitic tweets more than doubled after Musks’ takeover. It is true that the number of tweets about jews more than doubled. However, the majority of these conversations in October and early November were reactions to controversial statements about Jews by Kanye, former president Donald Trump, and Kyrie Irving. The majority of said tweets denouncing antisemitism [1].
The question is, who is the arbiter of ‘disinformation’? deeming any single perspective as the definitive truth is not only impractical but also counter to the ethos of open dialogue and debate that is fundamental to democratic societies.The scientific method is often heralded as a beacon of objective truth-seeking. However, there is no authority in science. The only relevant factor is data, and data is just data. What anyone derives from that data has no authority and is constantly revised.
Truth should not be up to the whims of the majority, nor should it be up to some intern in a governing body, nor should it be up to an expert, even if those deciding on misinformation was anything resembling experts. Nobody has the qualifications to decide what legal information citizens are allowed to access.
Besides, what is disinformation? Did Vestager participate in the spreading of disinformation? Would anything questioning the Iraq influence campaign and WMDs be considered misinformation in 2003?
1:Gunther Jikeli and Katharina Soemer: Conversations About Jews on Twitter: Recent Developments Since Elon Musk’s Takeover
Yes, misinformation is harmfull, but I am skeptical about gouvernment and political institutions not only simply having the power to say what narratives are wrong and right, but also have the means of straight up banning them from public discourse. Tools like this are very prone to being abused in powergames. To all the left wingers, imagine if a right wing gouvernment came to power and had therefore gained access to these tools, to the right wingers, imagine the same the other way around. Every gouvernemt would shape the discoussion and therefore manipulate the vote as they please, because who is stopping them? And do you realy think the “experts” they claim to put in charge, will speak against their employer when they lie?
If people would have been confronted with the reality of such policies and honestly asked if they would agree with them and not merely asked “do you think misinformation bad?”, they would have answered differently, maybe. The agreement with a desired outcome, does not equal agreement with the means to get there.
Oh yes, I really want our government deciding what is ‚disinformation’ and censoring it
This is what EU is all about, the citizens of the EU, and the things we deserve and want as citizens of the EU, this is excellent news, people in doubt or believe in TikTok conspiracy theories of the evil EU, have very little understanding of what are the values of the European Union are and what it fundementally stands for, there is not a single EU entity, rather EU is the group of the every member country.
There is not a single thing mentioning about censorship, in the EU based upon the public opinion of large amounts of disinformation present in a unstable climate in the world today, arrival of artificial intelligence, which for example allows for the automation of disinformation, of blatant troll agendas.
IMO, what we need is something akin to a drivers license, in order to use the internet you should need go a course to learn the common ways people spread propaganda and disinformation, aswell as malware and other cyberthreats, and funded by scientific institutions and cybersecurity companies, not governments.
The government regulating speech is way more scary than desinformation.
Press X to doubt
Yes, definitely we want governments to regulate information and what truth is…
I really wanted that for so long: seeing only government approved news so that I can finally relax my neurons. I would be really happy to have my taxes used for checking up the news, banning the wrong ones.
Bernard Arnault or Daniel Křetínský will no longer be obliged to buy out all the media companies around to feed us with the right information or whom to vote for. They will finally have more resources to invest in beneficial sectors and provide us some work when we behave.
Real democrature ahead! Hurray! I wonder who our first Minister of Truth will be? Von der Leyen? Burla? Bob Sternfels? Larry Fink?
No we don’t. Most people have enough education and intelligence to weed out disinformation. I am really concerned with this push to regulate truth, speech, the internet and every means of modern communication.
What we all need is a ministry of truth /s
I do, but who decides what’s disinformation?
No we don’t
It’s not government’s place to deal with “misinformation” because it is a sure way to censorship. Stop holding people for naive kids who needs explaining and mentorship, let them judge themselves.
One does not need to leave Europe to see what happens when government wants to control the flow of information. Look at Russia and Belarus. I think it’s obvious that disinformation is the lesser evil in this dichotomy. Censorship when it is abused is far worse. And it will be abused – it’s just a human nature.
but who decides what’s misinformation and what isn’t
Yay, more censorship
Sure, but who decides it? And what is done with information that is deemed to be erroneous? Should we censor it, or add an unbiased fact-check? Censoring is very dangerous for free speech, and having to fact-check all the BS people may say on social media seems quite resource-intensive and a bit invasive.
The best strategy agains disinformation – and regardless from which side – is still better education and training to have enough people call out BS when they spot it.
No I dont.
If we’re going to do this, the ombudsman needs additional powers to protect civil rights.
I honestly prefer what we have now, though, which is a covenant with social media companies that requires them to make a genuine and concerted effort, but doesn’t holds them criminally liable if things fall through the cracks, which will inevitably happen.
Many redditors here believe that acting against disinformation is a proxy for censorship.
It is not. Disinformation is not about opinions, but factual lies, often dissimulated. If you believe immigrants are the worst Italian problem, it’s your opinion. But if you argue they are paid €28/day and are hosted in 4-star hotels, that’s disinformation: it must be blocked and those who spread it must be sanctioned.
Really? I sincerely hope people are not in favor of more censorship online.
I don’t care what anybody says. We should ban fake news from the internet. The other day, some guy on r/2westerneurope4u posted a list of penis size by country, and my country wasn’t even on the list.
There is no way the swamp Germans came in number 10! People are out there spreading all sorts of lies and the EU does nothing. What a sick joke!
33 comments
People in the EU want more to be done in the fight against the deliberate spreading of untrue and fake content on the Internet. Overall, 85 percent of the EU’s citizens feel that policymakers should do more to prevent the spread of disinformation, while 89 percent say that the operators of social media platforms should take more action as well. The desire for a greater response goes hand in hand with a clear recognition of the problem among people living in the EU. Those are the findings from a new study by our Upgrade Democracy project. According to the study, more than one in two respondents (54 percent) are often or very often unsure whether the information they find on the Internet is true, while 39 percent say they are aware of having encountered disinformation.
Aha, and who decides what is true and what isn’t? Big Brother?
Yes, but not a priority. Fix that thing in Italy before everything else.
“Disinformation bad” from the same people who told us Iraq had WMD.
Do they? Or does government say that they do?
It’s my god given right to lie to people online and make up source that I know they’re too lazy to look for or otherwise scrutinize in any meaningful capacity. The EU will not take this from me, it will fail.
Do we want ‘truth’ to be decided by our governments instead of, idk, experts and specialists?
Disinformation, riiight
If we want to counter disinformation we can start by shutting off access to the European Commision’s youtube channel. When discussing their censorship act Margrethe Vestager ironically makes use of disinformation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eovkTtYljTM&ab_channel=EuropeanCommission
She claims the number of anti-semitic tweets more than doubled after Musks’ takeover. It is true that the number of tweets about jews more than doubled. However, the majority of these conversations in October and early November were reactions to controversial statements about Jews by Kanye, former president Donald Trump, and Kyrie Irving. The majority of said tweets denouncing antisemitism [1].
The question is, who is the arbiter of ‘disinformation’? deeming any single perspective as the definitive truth is not only impractical but also counter to the ethos of open dialogue and debate that is fundamental to democratic societies.The scientific method is often heralded as a beacon of objective truth-seeking. However, there is no authority in science. The only relevant factor is data, and data is just data. What anyone derives from that data has no authority and is constantly revised.
Truth should not be up to the whims of the majority, nor should it be up to some intern in a governing body, nor should it be up to an expert, even if those deciding on misinformation was anything resembling experts. Nobody has the qualifications to decide what legal information citizens are allowed to access.
Besides, what is disinformation? Did Vestager participate in the spreading of disinformation? Would anything questioning the Iraq influence campaign and WMDs be considered misinformation in 2003?
1:Gunther Jikeli and Katharina Soemer: Conversations About Jews on Twitter: Recent Developments Since Elon Musk’s Takeover
Yes, misinformation is harmfull, but I am skeptical about gouvernment and political institutions not only simply having the power to say what narratives are wrong and right, but also have the means of straight up banning them from public discourse. Tools like this are very prone to being abused in powergames. To all the left wingers, imagine if a right wing gouvernment came to power and had therefore gained access to these tools, to the right wingers, imagine the same the other way around. Every gouvernemt would shape the discoussion and therefore manipulate the vote as they please, because who is stopping them? And do you realy think the “experts” they claim to put in charge, will speak against their employer when they lie?
If people would have been confronted with the reality of such policies and honestly asked if they would agree with them and not merely asked “do you think misinformation bad?”, they would have answered differently, maybe. The agreement with a desired outcome, does not equal agreement with the means to get there.
Oh yes, I really want our government deciding what is ‚disinformation’ and censoring it
This is what EU is all about, the citizens of the EU, and the things we deserve and want as citizens of the EU, this is excellent news, people in doubt or believe in TikTok conspiracy theories of the evil EU, have very little understanding of what are the values of the European Union are and what it fundementally stands for, there is not a single EU entity, rather EU is the group of the every member country.
There is not a single thing mentioning about censorship, in the EU based upon the public opinion of large amounts of disinformation present in a unstable climate in the world today, arrival of artificial intelligence, which for example allows for the automation of disinformation, of blatant troll agendas.
IMO, what we need is something akin to a drivers license, in order to use the internet you should need go a course to learn the common ways people spread propaganda and disinformation, aswell as malware and other cyberthreats, and funded by scientific institutions and cybersecurity companies, not governments.
The government regulating speech is way more scary than desinformation.
Press X to doubt
Yes, definitely we want governments to regulate information and what truth is…
Great Idea™©® !
I really wanted that for so long: seeing only government approved news so that I can finally relax my neurons. I would be really happy to have my taxes used for checking up the news, banning the wrong ones.
Bernard Arnault or Daniel Křetínský will no longer be obliged to buy out all the media companies around to feed us with the right information or whom to vote for. They will finally have more resources to invest in beneficial sectors and provide us some work when we behave.
Real democrature ahead! Hurray! I wonder who our first Minister of Truth will be? Von der Leyen? Burla? Bob Sternfels? Larry Fink?
No we don’t. Most people have enough education and intelligence to weed out disinformation. I am really concerned with this push to regulate truth, speech, the internet and every means of modern communication.
What we all need is a ministry of truth /s
I do, but who decides what’s disinformation?
No we don’t
It’s not government’s place to deal with “misinformation” because it is a sure way to censorship. Stop holding people for naive kids who needs explaining and mentorship, let them judge themselves.
One does not need to leave Europe to see what happens when government wants to control the flow of information. Look at Russia and Belarus. I think it’s obvious that disinformation is the lesser evil in this dichotomy. Censorship when it is abused is far worse. And it will be abused – it’s just a human nature.
but who decides what’s misinformation and what isn’t
Yay, more censorship
Sure, but who decides it? And what is done with information that is deemed to be erroneous? Should we censor it, or add an unbiased fact-check? Censoring is very dangerous for free speech, and having to fact-check all the BS people may say on social media seems quite resource-intensive and a bit invasive.
The best strategy agains disinformation – and regardless from which side – is still better education and training to have enough people call out BS when they spot it.
No I dont.
If we’re going to do this, the ombudsman needs additional powers to protect civil rights.
I honestly prefer what we have now, though, which is a covenant with social media companies that requires them to make a genuine and concerted effort, but doesn’t holds them criminally liable if things fall through the cracks, which will inevitably happen.
Many redditors here believe that acting against disinformation is a proxy for censorship.
It is not. Disinformation is not about opinions, but factual lies, often dissimulated. If you believe immigrants are the worst Italian problem, it’s your opinion. But if you argue they are paid €28/day and are hosted in 4-star hotels, that’s disinformation: it must be blocked and those who spread it must be sanctioned.
Really? I sincerely hope people are not in favor of more censorship online.
I don’t care what anybody says. We should ban fake news from the internet. The other day, some guy on r/2westerneurope4u posted a list of penis size by country, and my country wasn’t even on the list.
There is no way the swamp Germans came in number 10! People are out there spreading all sorts of lies and the EU does nothing. What a sick joke!
But America is THRIVING right now guys