[Chapter-delegates] Final report of the High Level Expert Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation

[Veni Markovski]

Dear colleagues,
I am privileged* to point you to you the Final report of the High Level
Expert Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation
<https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/final-report-high-level-expert-group-fake-news-and-online-disinformation>.
(also attached)

/The analysis presented in the Report starts from a shared understanding
of disinformation as a phenomenon that goes well beyond the term "fake
news". Disinformation as defined in this Report includes all forms of
false, inaccurate, or misleading information designed, presented and
promoted to intentionally cause public harm or for profit. It does not
cover issues arising from the creation and dissemination online of
illegal content (notably defamation, hate speech, incitement to
violence), which are subject to regulatory remedies under EU or national
laws, nor other forms of deliberate but not misleading distortions of
facts such a satire and parody./

From the point of view of ISOC chapters, and the broader i* technical
community there are couple of moments, which are very important. They
are related to what advice the group gave to the European Commission
with regards to their further actions.

/As the the Executive Summary says (page 5), //"the HLEG advises the
Commission to disregard simplistic solutions. Any form of censorship
either public or private should clearly be avoided. Fragmentation of the
Internet, or any harmful consequences for its technical functioning
should also be avoided."////
//In the report itself (page 20), I'd like to draw your attention to
these lines, "The HLEG believes the best responses are likely to be
those driven by Multistakeholder collaborations, minimize legal
regulatory interventions, and avoid the politically dictated
privatization of the policing and censorship of what is and is not
acceptable forms of expression. They should be based on clearly defined
principles established through a transparent multistakeholder engagement
process and framed within a binding roadmap for implementation including
monitoring and reporting requirements in order to make them effective in
practise. These responses, by all stakeholders, should not lead to
harmful consequences for the technical functioning of the Internet;
among others, they should avoid its fragmentation, and ensure that its
security, stability and resiliency is intact."/


In the context of the search for the new President/CEO of ISOC, it may
be good to point out that whoever she or he is, and I speak here as
chairman of the board of an European chapter (ISOC-Bulgaria, est. 1995),
I would be expecting that s/he would enhance the engagement of ISOC with
the European Union.
We've discussed this idea some years ago in one of the lists - that ISOC
could engage more, and could even get some funding from the EU, which
might help the global ISOC to solve some of the issues, related to
disproportionate funds, coming only from one source (PIR/.org).

Also, it should be clear by now that the EU and the European Commission
will continue to engage in issues, related to the Internet, including to
issues that are within the mandate of ISOC, and their studies, projects,
not even mentioning the policies, legislation, communications, etc., may
have a serious impact on the development of the Internet globally. We
all see how one European legislation - the GDPR - has an impact on
everyone, around the planet.
IMHO, ISOC should be more actively engaged in the discussions and
deliberations, leading to such policies. ISOC chapters in certain
countries are engaged (I can give Bulgaria as an obvious example!), but
in others they are not so much. There should be a better coordination
between the chapters, with the help of ISOC, in order to make sure that
no harm is going to be done to the global Internet.

-- 

Best regards, 
Veni
http://www.isoc.bg
Internet Society - Bulgaria 
pgp:5BA1366E veni at veni.com


______
* - I say "privileged", because I was one of the 39 experts - members of this group. 
I participated in my private capacity as an expert from Bulgaria. 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/chapter-delegates/attachments/20180312/9a4af117/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Amulti-dimensionalapproachtodisinformation-ReportoftheindependentHighlevelGrouponfakenewsandonlinedisinformation.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 486409 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/chapter-delegates/attachments/20180312/9a4af117/attachment.pdf>