On 14 May 2021, Prof. Trisha Meyer, Director of the Research Centre for Digitalisation, Democracy and Innovation (CD2I) at the Brussels School of Governance, gave a presentation at the OSCE Expert Meeting on International Law and Policy on Disinformation in the Context of Freedom of the Media.
The expert meeting analysed and discussed the problem of how to counter dissemination of false reports and information detrimental to peace, security and cooperation through international law and policy.
In her presentation, Trisha talked about challenges and opportunities of platform responses to disinformation for freedom of expression and the media. She noted the self-regulatory and de facto role that platforms play as definers, judges and enforcers of acceptable expression on their services. She presented her research on platform responses to health and political disinformation and stressed that “in the absence of harmonised standards and definitions, each company uses its own ‘curatorial yardstick’, with no consistency in enforcement, transparency or appeal”.
Building on David Kaye’s extensive work on human rights principles for online content moderation, Prof. Meyer highlighted the urgent need for transparent and measurable content moderation policies that support human rights and are implemented equitably on a truly global scale. Detailed and frequent (public) transparency reports are essential, providing information on the spread of disinformation, suspension of accounts, removal of content and other steps against disinformation, including content promotion, demotion and demonetisation. She also talked about the importance of empowerment of users by providing notice of action, ability to appeal decisions (also machine-driven ones), and access to journalism from independent and professional news organisations. Finally, Trisha briefly discussed the advantage of establishing cross-industry multistakeholder social media councils that would allow for industry-wide scrutiny, complaints and recommendations of interpretation and implementation of standards.
Consult the presentation here.
Watch the event here.
