#Europe agenda: “Six Key Points from the EU High Level Group’s New Report on Disinformation…

By Clara Jiménez Cruz, Alexios Mantzarlis, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, and Claire Wardle*

Today the EU Commission released the final report from the High Level Expert Group on Fake News, entitled “A Multi-Dimensional Approach to Disinformation”. The report, a document supported by a number of different stakeholders, including the largest technology companies, journalists, fact-checkers, academics and representatives from civil society has a number of important attributes including: important definitional work rejecting the use of the phrase ‘fake news’; an emphasis on freedom of expression as a fundamental right; a clear rejection of any attempt to censor content; a call for efforts to counter interference in elections; a commitment by tech platforms to share data; calls for investment in media and information literacy and comprehensive evaluations of these efforts; as well as cross-border research into the scale and impact of disinformation.

Despite her defeat against Macron last year Marine Le Pen was re-elected leader of the Front National on Sunday. She announced that she wanted to rename the far-right party, proposing Rassemblement National, or “National Rally”. A sign of weakness or the start of the 2022 presidential race?

Recent years have proved that if you want to look for which countries are adopting innovative digital governing solutions, you don’t look at the usual tech suspects like the US or Japan. You look to Estonia. Estonia, being a country of approximately 1,3 million people has in recent years really set the agenda for how you govern a country digitally. Their ideas within e-governance, digital policies, and national cryptocurrencies have created headlines all over the world and shifted the lens of the media to pay close attention to what is buzzing in this small state in the Baltics. Estonia has…
New York Times – Jason Horowitz – Mar 9, 3:10 PM

MILAN — Stephen K. Bannon leaned back in an armchair opposite a copy of a painting by an Italian old master and explained his modest efforts to build a vast network of European populists to demolish the Continent’s political establishment.

 

German chancellor Angela Merkel, as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), signed Monday the agreement for a coalition government with Horst Seehofer, the leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, and Olaf Scholz, the acting leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The signing puts an end to a period of political uncertainty since last September’s elections. Merkel will be sworn in on Thursday.

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