Ukraine to apply experience of France in countering disinformation

Ukraine experts examined the experience of France in the field of regulation of spreading the disinformation and schedules to apply its methods. It was discussed at the round table “Prospects of countering disinformation and freedom of speech online: case of EU member states” held on May 28th, as to Ukrinform. The deputy minister of Information policy Dmytro Zolotukhin spoke on French experience of the legislation on counteraction of disinformation. He pointed out that Ukraine had more dramatic challenges and had to form a public demand for legislative regulation of the disinformation issue. "The law (adopted in France – n/ed.) is not a response to all challenges, it does not protect fromr all the threats they face. (…) And on the other hand, we also need to understand that we have a completely different landscape - the media and information, because in France the media are mostly the business, "said Zolotukhin. The deputy minister noted that in France, society has formed a request addressed to political elites as to protection against disinformation, and political elites have been forced to resolve this issue. He said that two laws passed in France included amendments to the Election and Education Codes, the Law on Freedom of communication. The four main innovations were to increase the transparency of the operation of online platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), to provide the right to the Higher Audiovisual Council to suspend broadcasting within a efined period if the broadcaster transmits potentially dangerous information and is under the influence of foreign states. In addition, according to the law, the courts of justice have 48 hours to consider cases related to the removal of untruthful information, and the educational code added a thesis about the importance of "critical information analysis", "verification of information", etc. Discussing the situation in Ukraine, the participants noted that the failure to get the activity of news resources online well-regulated needs reaction from the state. In particular, one should elaborate the anti-monopoly legislation in the area of e-commerce, the legislation on personal data in order to reflect at the law that online platforms diffusing various content are subjected to Ukrainian legislation. "And then we will be able to have civil-law relations with them," Zolotukhin emphasized. The round table also discussed the issue of transparency of the sources of funding for online resources, structure which should determine whether the information is manipulative or inaccurate, counteraction to throw-in of information from outside, etc. The experts are expected to continue their work on legislative regulation aiming to counteract disinformation and ensure press freedom online.