The “European Approach” to fighting disinformation: Lessons for the United States
democratic norms and values in spite of deep partisan divides.
The “European Approach” also provides U.S. policymakers with insight into potential weaknesses in the response to disinformation. The Commission’s “EU-level” approach highlights the dependency of counter-disinformation efforts on achieving buy-in from political parties and leaders. While the Commission can threaten the private sector into compliance through regulation, it is limited to providing encouragement and recommendations to member states to implement the changes necessary to protect against disinformation. For parties and leaders who benefit from the proliferation of false narratives and the degradation of credible media institutions, such as Czech President Milos Zeman and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, there is little incentive to invest in higher journalistic standards or fact-checking. Further, disinformation narratives are often targeted to co-opt the support of specific political and social groups, who then facilitate the dissemination and amplification of false narratives within a country. This manipulation of domestic actors significantly complicates attempts to combat hostile foreign interference. As long as those who benefit from disinformation continue to value their own personal profit over the sanctity of their country’s democratic institutions, disinformation will continue to plague public discussion.
Although the European Commission’s report offers a valuable analysis of disinformation, it is important to contextualize this threat within the wider scope of asymmetric, illiberal challenges to democracy. Disinformation is just one piece of the foreign interference toolkit employed by state actors to undermine democratic societies. States like China and Russia continue to make use of a diverse set of tactics in projecting asymmetric foreign interference, including disinformation, but also cyber capabilities, malign financial influence, corruption, the weaponization of energy, and support for extremist political and social groups. Successfully protecting democratic institutions from this malign foreign interference will require that U.S. policymakers understand and address this toolkit as a whole.
The Commission’s report is the most recent step in the EU’s escalating fight against disinformation. In September 2015, in response to “Russia’s ongoing disinformation campaigns,” the EU launched the East Stratcom Task Force to help combat disinformation, strengthen media institutions, and better communicate the EU’s policies across the Eastern Partnership countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine). In June 2017, the European Parliament called on the European Commission to analyze the potential for “legislative intervention” to combat the dissemination of disinformation, while simultaneously pressuring online platforms to “provide users with tools to denounce fake news.” In November 2017, the Commission announced that it would establish a High-Level Expert Group, and seek public consultations to help develop its “EU-level strategy” for combatting fake news. The High-Level Expert Group published their final report in March 2018.
Overall, the European Commission’s approach to tackling disinformation presents an important and valuable contribution toward generating a unified response to hostile foreign interference. U.S. policymakers would do well to learn from the Commission’s report, both in its successes and in its limitations.
Bradley Hanlon is Research Assistant at the Alliance for Securing Democracy. The article, originally posted to the website of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, is published here courtesy of the GMFUS
