The EU leaders have urged the relevant bodies to implement measures against disinformation campaigns ahead of the 2019 European Parliament election, the statement adopted after the European Council summit in the Belgian capital of Brussels read on Thursday.
BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th October, 2018) The EU leaders have urged the relevant bodies to implement measures against disinformation campaigns ahead of the 2019 European Parliament election, the statement adopted after the European Council summit in the Belgian capital of Brussels read on Thursday.
The European Parliament election is scheduled for May 23-26, 2019.
"The European Council also calls for measures to protect the Union's democratic systems and combat disinformation, including in the context of the upcoming European elections, in full respect of fundamental rights. In this respect, the measures proposed by the Commission on election cooperation networks, online transparency, protection against cybersecurity incidents, unlawful data manipulation and fighting disinformation campaigns and tightening the rules on European political party funding deserve rapid examination and operational follow-up by the competent authorities," the statement read.
On September 26, representatives of social networks and online platforms agreed upon the Code of Practice, set to fight online disinformation and fake news. The code was designed in order to achieve the objectives that were set out in the European Commission's "Tackling online disinformation: a European approach" document, issued in April 2018. The objectives include raising public awareness on disinformation and efficiently fighting it. The European Commission is set to assess the results of the Code of Practice implementation by the end of 2018. If the commission qualifies the results as unsatisfactory, new measures may be introduced.
