Normativity in the EU’s Approach towards Disinformation

With the rapid growth of disinformation, two major steps were taken to battle the phenomenon in the online environment—first on the global level, and second on the European Union level. The first step is the Joint Declaration on Freedom of Expression and “Fake News”, Disinformation and Propaganda, which provides a general overview of possible actions to be taken to fight disinformation, and how “things should be”. The steps are connected to following human rights standards, promoting the diversity of media, and paying special attention to intermediaries and media outlets. The second one is the Code of Practice on Disinformation, which is a self-regulatory document that can be voluntarily signed by major social media platforms and advertising bodies, and its main focus is making political advertising coherent and clear, preventing the creation of fake accounts, providing users with tools to report disinformation, and promote further research. Nevertheless, based on the reports and criticism from stakeholders, the Code of Practice has not reached a common ground regarding definitions, it has provided no mechanism to access the development, and has had several other drawbacks which need additional attention and discussion. The article is devoted to identifying gaps in the Code of Practice on Disinformation based on the reports and criticism provided by the stakeholders and elaborating on possible practices to regulate the legal issues raised by disinformation on the European Union level. We use doctrinal and comparative methods in the work. The doctrinal method targets the cluster that was identified in order to analyze the Code of Practice, identifies weak spots and inconsistencies, and offers solutions from different areas of law. The comparative method was selected since in several areas of law, such as human rights and consumer protection law, the previously identified approaches will be addressed to find the best outcomes. This combination of methods allows an in-depth understanding of legal documents and identifying successful solutions, which can influence further development based on efficient examples.