Europe Cannot Protect Democracy by Distrusting Its Citizens
The Future of Free Speech submitted feedback in response to the Call for Evidence for the "European Democracy Shield." Here's why we are concerned.
In her speech at the 2024 Copenhagen Democracy Summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen argued that Europe should not “fight the authoritarians or the extremes at their own game,” but instead “fight them by offering a positive vision of the future” that “protects what we hold dear – our democracy and our values.”
In that address, President von der Leyen proposed a “European Democracy Shield” that would focus on “the biggest threats from foreign interference and manipulation” and ensure that “detected malign information or propaganda […] is swiftly removed and blocked” by online platforms.
A year after this announcement, the European Commission recently issued a Call for Evidence, seeking the perspective of various stakeholders on the European Democracy Shield. The Future of Free Speech has submitted a public comment in response to this request to express our concerns about this initiative.
While the Call for Evidence claims that the “key objectives of this initiative revolve around promoting societal resilience and increasing trust of EU citizens in democracy and democratic institutions at the national and EU level,” our submission to this consultation argues that many potential measures would undermine this objective by eroding the right to freedom of expression.
Far from protecting democracy, the European Democracy Shield, as proposed, poses a grave danger to it by actively undermining and ignoring concerns about its most fundamental and bedrock principle.
The Dangers of the European Democracy Shield
The initiative’s focus on "countering disinformation and foreign information manipulation and interference" should already be a reason for caution since preventing "disinformation" was most commonly cited by governments to justify speech-restrictive developments, according to a recent report tracking the global free speech recession.
The Call for Evidence cited public surveys on the risk perceptions surrounding these threats in Europe to aggressively justify the urgency of addressing them. However, several factors influence risk perceptions, not necessarily the prevalence or impact of specific risks. We noticed a significant gap between academic research on these risks and the call for evidence.
Academic research does not support the alarmist warnings on the prevalence and impact of "foreign information manipulation" or "disinformation," and research often characterizes the discourse around "disinformation" as a "moral panic." The Call for Evidence concludes that “recent experience has shown an intensification and wider spread of these threats,” but this reasoning remains obscure to us in the available evidence.
Furthermore, "elite discourse" on these threats might further undermine trust in democracy and democratic institutions as well as in the media in general. An increased risk perception of these threats seems to negatively impact satisfaction with democracy. Ringing the alarm bell on "disinformation" and "foreign information manipulation" could thus lead to "casting divergent opinions as a result of manipulation" and thus "weaken the support for crucial elements of liberal democracy and the legitimacy of electoral defeat", as argued in a study on the “negative downstream effects of disinformation discourse.”
Additionally, and even more worrying, many proposed measures sincerely undermine the right to freedom of expression and information. In particular, the objective raised by President von der Leyen to ensure that “malign information or propaganda [ . . . ] is swiftly removed and blocked” would impose significant constraints on freedom of expression and substantially conflict with the other desired goal to protect the values of democracy.
Restricting access to obviously false information and propaganda not only undermines the right to freedom of expression but also carries the inherent risk of suppressing critical or divergent voices in the political discourse. Moreover, we should recall that "for all its harms and costs, free speech and access to information are a competitive advantage when democracies engage in information wars with authoritarians."
The analysis of the current political framework and its enforcement, including the ban on Russian state media, the enforcement of the Digital Services Act, the Code of Conduct on Disinformation and current practices around fact-checking, have led us to five key recommendations that the upcoming EU initiative should consider in order to increase trust in democratic institutions and safeguard freedom of expression.
I. Refrain from exaggerated warnings about “disinformation” and “foreign information manipulation.”
Exaggerated warnings can have the opposite effect and contribute to the crisis they aim to mitigate. As pointed out, it is not necessarily "disinformation" itself that undermines trust in democracy and the acceptance of electoral results, but rather exaggerated warnings in media and policy discourse. While academic research shows how the prevalence and impact of "disinformation" are rather low, unfounded warnings can lead people to view other opinions as the result of manipulation and thus lower the acceptance of the democratic process.
II. Rebuild mutual trust through communication, transparency, and promoting a free speech culture
Rebuilding trust requires institutions to demonstrate trust in citizens through transparency, openness, and respectful dialogue. Recent measures such as the EU’s ban on Russian State Media or efforts to deliberately reduce the spread of certain information have undermined this goal. These actions risk reinforcing the issue of distrust they aim to combat and should be re-evaluated considering their long-term implications for democratic legitimacy.
In 1962, former U.S. President John F. Kennedy emphasized that "a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” The flip side of this is that a nation that is afraid of its people cannot expect their trust since trust needs to be seen as a mutual relationship. While Taiwan has been the "largest target of foreign information disinformation for the last ten years," its approach of "radically trusting citizens" provides crucial lessons and should be seen as an inspiration.
III. Refrain from top-down approaches in “fact-checking” and encourage crowdsourced alternatives
Traditional fact-checking approaches and their current embedding in platform architecture do not reflect the epistemic strength of open societies and freedom of expression. That is why we recommend focusing on crowd-sourced alternatives using the "wisdom of crowds."
Such systems "combine the participatory, open and interactive nature of social media with features that encourage thoughtful listening, an understanding of conversational dynamics and the careful emergence of an understanding of shared views and points of rough consensus" and leverage the potential and power of democratic debate and freedom of expression instead of suppressing it. This approach leads to higher trust.
IV. Support spaces for democratic discourse, viewpoint diversity, and competing values.
The heart of democracy is not truth but popular sovereignty, which rests on the foundation of freedom of expression and access to information. Thus, "[s]aving democracy is [ . . . ] not about arming against fake news and disinformation – at least not primarily. It is instead, and perhaps more importantly, about creating genuine spaces for politics: that is, spaces for contestation, for political difference, and for pluralism.” The next European Initiative should put these principles in the spotlight in order to safeguard European democracies.
V. Include freedom of expression experts in decision-making.
The Call for Evidence mentions that “the Commission is planning to present an EU civil society strategy” that “will support, protect and empower civil society organizations and human rights defenders and will put forward actions to step up the Commission’s engagement with them and to ensure that they are better protected in their work.”
Given the impact the European Democracy Shield can have on freedom of expression and the concerns raised concerning related measures like the DSA, the European Commission should ensure that freedom of expression advocates are systematically consulted. This would reduce the risk that the European Democracy Shield has unintended effects on fundamental rights.
Our full submission to the Call for Evidence can be found here.
Alexander Hohlfeld is an affiliate fellow at The Future of Free Speech and a digital policy researcher and consultant.