Defining disinformation across EU and VLOP policies

Abstract

Defining disinformation is essential to propose concrete measures to identify and, possibly, moderate harmful online content. In this article, we underline the ways in which disinformation and related concepts are defined in relevant European policies, focusing, among other things, on the Digital Services Act and the Code of Practice on Disinformation at the EU-level, national legislation, as well as the policies and community guidelines of major Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs). By analysing these different, yet intertwined, policies, we identify the approaches that guide VLOPs’ actions related to information manipulations, as well as the challenges and opportunities of defining disinformation and thus operationalising its governance at the European level. We observe that the dominant definitions of disinformation in the EU stipulate that, in order to be considered disinformation, content needs to contain (1) verifiably false or misleading information, (2) have a potential to cause harm to society, (3) must be intentionally spread (4) for possible economic or political gain. However, platform policies are in most cases not in line with all components of these definitions, as they are, among other things, unwilling to consider the component of intent, and may not be clear on their definitions of harm. This can lead to both under- and over-regulating certain aspects of the problem, and thereby potentially limiting users’ freedom of expression as well as threatening information integrity.