4. Tratamientos intravítreos en el EMD
4.1 Fármacos anti –VEGF
4.4.1 Introduction
Parts of disinformation and propaganda campaigns aim directly at influencing national elections or referenda (see section 1.3). In recent years, almost all of the elections in EU Member States (elections in the Netherlands in 2017; the French presidential election in 2017; the Swedish general elections in 2018;494 the Hungarian parliamentary elections in 2018)495 showed signs of foreign intervention to a greater or lesser extent.
The number of recommendations is fairly high and there are some key points highlighted by numerous experts, but the number of promising examples is considerably lower. This section will summarise these latest practices from those states that had elections in the past few years.
4.4.2 Media and information literacy
Education in critical thinking, development of a critical perception of reality and the ideal of the well-informed citizen are key elements of resilience against fake news and disinformation. Making society more sensitive to disinformation and alternative facts was key before the elections in the Netherlands, in France or in Sweden. Raising awareness of the possibility and possible consequences of interference in the election process was a crucial step in these societies. Education of not just youth but the elderly and the public at large is an essential way of strengthening resilience among citizens and voters.
According to the Special Eurobarometer on democracy and elections,496 when respondents were asked about their concerns about the use of the internet in the pre-election period during even local, national or European elections, 73 % of the internet users were concerned about disinformation or misinformation online, which is a clear indication that most internet users have already heard about disinformation phenomena in Europe. However, a vast majority of them, 58 % of the total sample, agreed their country is doing what is needed to prevent illegal and fraudulent activities during elections, whether at local, national or European level.
The new proposed text of the AVMS Directive includes a definition of ‘media literacy’ as one which should “aim to equip citizens with the critical thinking skills required to exercise judgment, analyse complex realities and recognise the difference between opinion and fact”. Article 28.b.2.j requires Member States to provide for effective media literacy measures and tools, and raise user awareness of them, and Articles 30b and 33 reiterate this goal with similar content.
Media literacy programmes should focus on how citizens can distinguish between real and fake news, how they can reduce the effect of disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories and how they can be more critical and doubting about propaganda and disinformation. One of these examples is from the Nordic countries, where as part of the official school education in Sweden, lessons, human and material resources are dedicated to the education of future voters and citizens by means of developing their critical thinking, and critical perception of propaganda and disinformation. Gamification could also be used as a possible tool to raise awareness and literacy skills to combat disinformation.497
494 News and Political Information Consumption in Sweden: Mapping the 2018 Swedish General Election on Twitter?
https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/sweden-election/?
495 Political communication in the Hungarian election campaign?
https://univiennamedialab.wordpress.com/2018/04/04/political-communication-in-the-hungarian-election-campaign/?
496 See more: Special Eurobarometer 477: Democracy and elections.
http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/instruments/SPECIAL/surveyKy/219 8
497 For example, see the NATO Stratcom's game to differentiate between real information and falsehood:
https://www.stratcomcoe.org/facebook-game-teaches-how-spot-disinformation;
We can find a number of other countries where media and information literacy programmes are part of the officialcurriculum (e.g. Italy), but there are also some other countries where grassroots movements and civil society organisations are developing such training programmes (e.g. CEE countries). As the AVMS Directive obliges Member States to promote and take measures for the development of media literacy skills (Article 33), this should not only remain at the level of civil society.
4.4.3 The crisis of journalism and how to overcome it: building a stronger future for journalists
A long-term harmful effect of the disinformation crisis is how it has undermined trust in the press. The already dominant relativism has grown with a feeling that “everyone is lying”. This could also be a strategic objective, to undermine confidence in democratic institutions and processes, including the media. At the same time journalism is facing a general crisis.498 The industry is underfinanced, leading traditional press organs to close or cut down on staff, often losing the most talented and creative journalists. This general crisis is further exacerbated by pseudo and troll news makers.499
An assessment of current media ownership relations and the indicates that, mostly in Central and Eastern European countries, and especially in those countries where public service media broadcasters are unable to provide balanced and unbiased information (e.g. Hungary), smaller but independent media houses and editorial offices play an increasingly important role in political and economic debates.500 These editors can contribute to the emergence of democratic social relations, democratic discourse and public dialogue, with credible information based on facts from verified sources, and with unbiased, impartial and high quality content. These editorial boards – some of which also operate as an NGO – need financial support to maintain their independence from economic and political pressures and in order to secure their operation in a long-term and balanced way. In several instances in the CEE region, these groups also take up the fight against Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns (e.g. 444 in Hungary) with credible information and fact-checked contributions to the public sphere.
As it was noted above, media should also take responsibility to deliver trustworthy, quality and reliable information to news consumers, thereby boosting trust in traditional print, broadcast or online media. In order to reach this objective, quality content should be based on impartial and reliable information, pluralistic views and on the basic principle of promotion of democratic values, including diversity, social cohesion and cultural diversity, helping to overcome the adverse effects of the disinformation war and contributing to public trust and citizens’ resistance (see more in chapter 7: Recommendations).
4.4.4 Campaign silence501
The legitimacy of campaign silence rules has triggered many controversies recently. In the context of an online information space that crosses national boundaries, and horizontal communication by citizens, these regulations can only have a limited effect. But this limited effect – for example, preventing at least dominant companies from disseminating game-changing disinformation with aggressive automated methods just hours before the voting – may have an effect that should not be underestimated. On the one hand, the same could occur just before the start of campaign silence, leaving no time for the political opponent to fight back. On the other hand, in the latter case, voters would still have some time left for reflection to consider the veracity of the information. Also, an election committee might lawfully supervise and allow an exceptional lifting of the campaign silence in case something extraordinary is published just before it begins.
498 See more: Alex T. Williams: Measuring the Journalism Crisis: Developing New Approaches That Help the Public Connect to the Issue. International Journal of Communication 11(2017), Feature 4731–4743.
499 Xymena Kurowska, Anatoly Reshetnikov: Neutrollization: Industrialized trolling as a pro-Kremlin strategy of desecuritization. Security Dialogue, 49(5), 345–363. Source: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0967010618785102? 500 See more the Soft Censorship Reports on Hungary published by Mérték Media Monitor year by year.
http://mertek.eu/en/our-works/press-freedom/ 501 See more the 4.2. point of this Report.
The Eurobarometer survey on Democracy and elections found that a majority of respondents who use the internet were in favour of introducing on online social networks the same strict silence period that is required for other media.502
Member States have different provisions regarding the institution of campaign silence. Usually campaign activities are banned “on the day of the ballot” (Hungary) or “24 hours before the voting day” (Poland, France) or “on the day of the election or on the day before it” (Portugal). But, for example, in Spain electoral campaigning is prohibited “once the campaign is legally finished” – quite a vague reference to campaign silence. An interesting example is the French election rule that prevents media from quoting presidential candidates or their supporters within 24 hours of the vote, and this prevented most French voters obtaining information about the so-called “Macron Leaks”.
4.4.5 Credibility index
Creating and maintaining a list of all media outlets and their so-called credibility indices can be a form of raising trust in the (trustworthy) media, increasing awareness and information literacy, and altogether combatting disinformation campaigns, in both online and offline media environments. For example Le Monde503 published a list with hundreds of websites and their level of reliability before the French presidential elections. A similar list with disinformation and propaganda portals was published in Hungary in 2018. One alternative could be that search engines take into account these reliability indices and rank the results accordingly.
A significant example is Microsoft News, which has partnered with more than 1 000 publishers and 3 000 brands in 140 countries in order to provide a credibility index of English-speaking media. On average, these partners put out more than 100 000 pieces of unique content per day. A further alternative is for social media platforms to cooperate with credibility indices or fact-checkers, and take this feature as a factor in algorithmic operation. Some even argue that end users should have the option to see only trusted (certified) news on their social media sites. It must be noted that several competitive credibility indices may be available, and that the system could be exploited in the same way as other technological innovations. Creating credibility indices through broad cooperation – e.g. with the help of journalistic associations – would raise the chances of a widely-accepted tool being created.
Regaining trust in media may have a significance from the perspective of democratic public discourse. In those EU Member States where trust in traditional media, including public service media, is higher, for example in France or Belgium, the proportion of social media consumption is significantly lower. In Belgium (in the Flemish as well as in the French region) respondents highlighted the significant role of traditional media outlets and their trust in them.504 The long-standing trust in traditional media was a key element, for example, during the French presidential election in 2017.
Considering that social media platforms are the main channels of disinformation, it could be concluded that increased trust in traditional media could mitigate the harmful effects of disinformation.
502 Proportions range from 87% in Croatia, 83% in Ireland and 80% in Greece and Hungary to 58% in Sweden, 64% in Finland and 67% in Austria. In Croatia (54%) and Denmark (52%) at least half were strongly in favour of this measure. Eurobarometer Special. 477. Democracy and elections. September 2018. at 72.
503 Le Décodex, un premier pas vers la vérification de masse de l’information
https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2017/02/02/le-decodex-un-premier-pas-vers-la-verification-de-masse-de-l- information_5073130_4355770.html
504 Eugénie Coche: ‘Fake news’ and online disinformation Case study – Belgium. Source:
https://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download/Case-study-Fake-News-Belgium.pdf Access: 2 January 2019.
4.4.6 Fact-checking initiatives and media innovation projects
Fact-checking has become a trendy buzzword, and several initiatives emerged even beyond the United States, for example in Sweden. During the Swedish general elections campaign, four leading news outlets began a joint fact-checking initiative in order to combat disinformation (otherwise, in Sweden505 and in the Czech Republic506 separate government agencies are dealing with the fight against Russian propaganda). The European Union is operating the ‘EU versus Disinformation’ campaign run by the European External Action Service East Stratcom Task Force. Such services are very effective tools for journalists, researchers, policy-makers and every mindful media consumer. When they are created with the cooperation of various stakeholders, such as state, non-state, civil, academic and technology-relevant actors, experts and specialists, their efficiency and trustworthiness can be enhanced.
The limits of fact-checking sites are in their slowness: by the time they examine ‘suspicious’ content, it is likely to have rapidly multiplied and been distributed to many users. Furthermore, if troll industries or manipulating organs simply increase the mass of disinformation material, the efforts can turn into a ‘Sisyphean task’ and expend all investment of human and material resources in a futile effort. Creating blacklists and whitelists of websites and sources that have a tendency to provide disinformation / trustworthy information may be more practical, as is already the case. Besides providing information to interested users, this could draw the attention of potential advertisers to the quality of the site (naming and shaming).
Some of these sites have a cooperation agreement with Facebook that helps to avoid the further spread of completely fake news posts. Automatic algorithms can also be used to reduce the visibility of these posts. These measures and solutions can be in line with international legal obligations on freedom of expression and the press, as it does not limit the basic background action of the act (the free expression). Political candidates or parties can bypass traditional media outlets and use the social media page directly, as the US presidential election campaign in 2016 demonstrated: Donald Trump used his Twitter page as a main communication channel. Even though profiles are currently not usually listed among fact-checkers, this could be added to the services. 4.4.7 Involved parties / institutionalised protection
With the cooperation of a diversity of various stakeholders, better results can be achieved in the fight for fair and transparent elections. Stakeholders need to create an institutionalised way of protecting free, clean and fair elections and campaigns while safeguarding democratic institutions and processes.
Within this framework, one of the most important challenges is to engage the widest possible range of stakeholders. To achieve this goal, it is necessary, for example, to break the ice between political parties as was the case in France during the presidential election campaign: former President Francois Hollande warned the people of the threat of fake news and the role of disinformation in the campaign; and all parties involved cooperated to overcome the dangers (except for Le Pen's Front National Party). Campaigns must include a wide range of stakeholders (as we have also seen in France – a high level of cooperation among the state, political parties and the media), with the broadest possible geographical coverage (federal/state/ national/regional/local organs) and an interdisciplinary approach as witnessed in Germany where ethical hackers and software engineers were involved in order to secure a pre-compliance examination in connection with the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the German electoral system and infrastructure. Broad cooperation may add the necessary perspective and long-term engagement that is key to a successful fight against disinformation and propaganda.
Affected stakeholders are: legislative bodies and authorities; political parties and campaign staff; election infrastructure, election software company experts; traditional media providers; social media providers; educational organisations and staff; representatives of the academic sphere and researchers.
505 Sweden raises alarm on election meddling. https://euobserver.com/foreign/140542
506 Czech Republic to fight 'fake news' with specialist unit. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/28/czech-republic-
In sum, the promising practices applied in various states during or before elections were those that are already known and recommended by other instruments, for example by the Commission Action Plan: increasing awareness and media literacy, improving the quality of journalism, including fact-checking and credibility indices, and the cooperation of all stakeholders within society. Besides platform providers and media outlets, self- regulation by political parties and their engagement to respect ethical campaign principles would also be necessary.