Informing the Disinfo Debate: A Policy Guide for Protecting Human Rights

This joint report is a continuation of its 2018 predecessor, Informing the “Disinformation” Debate. The 2018 report is among the first civil society organisations to point to platforms’ problematic business models as a fundamental factor in online manipulating people’s economic and political choices. This current report unpacks the main manipulation methods that media engage in that harm fundamental rights. These methods stem directly from the platforms' business models and severely impact the absolute freedom to form an opinion and freedom of thought, including the surveillance-based advertisement, political advertising, amplification of disinformation online via content recommender systems and personalisation of news content.

Previous works informed the analysis of data protection, privacy, freedom of expression and opinion, and freedom of access to information. The primary outcome of this report is a set of policy recommendations addressed to the EU co-legislators focusing on: how to effectively mitigate fundamental rights risks that result from the manipulative methods deployed by large online platforms that exploit people’s vulnerabilities and their sensitive data; and how to combat disinformation in a manner that is fully compliant with fundamental rights standards; phasing out advertising that is based on tracking and targeting based on personal data, including inferred data; mandating accountability for platforms’ delivery algorithms to help ensure proper oversight; ensuring a strong enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation and the adoption of a strengthened ePrivacy Regulation to eliminate intrusive targeting techniques and limit the spread of disinformation; establishing minimum safeguards for users’ default settings to require an “opt-in” to personalised content recommendations systems rather than the current default “opt-out” in the ongoing discussion on vital digital policies (DSA, DMA, ePrivacy Regulation) among others.