Internet governance and disinformation in the spotlight at 3rd .eu Day
By Alastair Gill
Disinformation, digital policy and geopolitical concerns were the dominant themes at the third edition of EURid’s .eu Day, held on 4 December 2024 at the Members Salon in the European Parliament in Brussels.
The event brought together 12 speakers and more than 70 participants for discussions on how to ensure a secure future for an open and trustworthy digital Europe. This reflects EURid’s dual focus on technical excellence in internet governance and its alignment with European values and the EC’s digital priorities.
The day kicked off with a welcome introduction by Estonian MEP Marina Kaljurand, Chair of the Steering Committee of the European Internet Forum, who agreed to host EURid’s event at the EU Parliament.
Europe needs to think globally
Placing internet governance in a broad geopolitical context, Kaljurand looked back at the multilateral discussions at the UN Summit of the Future in New York in September and called on EU stakeholders not to ignore the world beyond Europe’s borders in the face of growing threats from nefarious actors like Russia and China.
“We have been too timid”, she said, insisting that it is vital that Europe takes an active role in promoting IG policy in Africa and the Global South, regions where Moscow and Beijing have been able to stake out anti-Western positions and spread disinformation.
Pearse O’Donohue, Director for Future Networks at the European Commission, echoed Kaljurand’s thoughts “with regard to the UN and the UN process” as he reflected on the general outlook for internet governance following the Global Digital Compact. Looking ahead to next year’s WSIS+20 in New York, he said it would be “a major opportunity to solidify the frameworks for global internet governance, but also hopefully to develop”.
He hailed the work European stakeholders and EU member states had done on the GDC but cautioned that governance of Web 4.0 and virtual worlds would be a challenge in the coming years, and that new technologies could have a disruptive impact on our multi-stakeholder governance model.
“We have to show that we are on top of the discussions about emerging technologies in order to actually take a leadership position globally, and to ensure that we are facilitating the participation of technical experts and stakeholders who can actually understand those technologies. We're still struggling to fully grasp the implications of artificial intelligence, and there's so much more happening”, said O’Donohue.
Looking ahead to the upcoming IGF (Internet Governance Forum) in Riyadh, he noted that it was important that stakeholders take a critical approach and ensure they are ready to build on the GDC framework to counter internet fragmentation and “ensure inclusive or accountable outcomes that are actually supporting the sustainable development priorities of the United Nations”.
Scaling up the fight against disinformation
The keynote was given by Sophie Timmermann, deputy head of the fact-checking team at Berlin-based investigative journalism agency CORRECTIV, who returned to Brussels as a .eu Day speaker for a second consecutive year to give a presentation on preventing disinformation.
Timmerman introduced the audience to the core elements of her work and showed the results of some of the investigative research and fact checks her team has been working on over the last year or so. Her examples included attempts to manipulate public opinion ahead of the EU elections, a Russian disinformation campaign ahead of the Paris Olympics and the use of fake audio in Slovakia to discredit an electoral candidate.
Timmerman praised the EU’s “pretty tight-knit regulatory framework”, as well as the way the EC reacts to disinformation. While she criticised tech platforms for not doing enough to combat disinformation, her view is that the situation requires a multifaceted approach.
“It's not only about the tech platforms and regulation, it's about fact checkers and journalists debunking, but it's also about society and making citizens more resilient towards understanding and being equipped with the right tools to prevent disinformation”, she said.
Many of the themes raised during Timmermann’s presentation were further developed by a panel discussion devoted to preventing the spread of disinformation and curbing its impact on democracy in Europe. Timmermann was joined by four other panellists: Kristjan Burgess, Senior Programme Specialist at UNESCO’s Communication and Information Sector Giacomo Mazzone, board member at EuroDIG and a member of the EDMO Taskforce On 2024 European Elections; Lara Levet, a public policy manager in Meta's EU Affairs team; and Paulo Glowacki, a member of EURid's Youth Committee who is currently studying for a Master's degree in International Law.
The resulting discussion was a fruitful exchange of ideas and suggestions that encompassed the problem of disinformation from a wide range of perspectives that reflected the professional backgrounds of the participants.
The panellists stressed the importance of enforcing EU regulation and the need for social media platforms to take tougher action on disinformation, including fulfilling their responsibility for transparency, accountability and due diligence. The discussion also touched on strategies to boost media literacy in Europe and scale fact-checking operations, as well as misconceptions about young Europeans’ ability to deal with disinformation.
Over lunch, Hans Seeuws, EURid’s Business Operations Manager, gave a short presentation of how the domain name system works and an overview of EURid’s operations, emphasising that tech sovereignty is a vital part of our mission to build a trustworthy and secure TLD.
The role of youth and education
EURid youth committee member Nadia Tjahja, co-coordinator of the Digital Governance Cluster at the United Nations University and coordinator of YOUthDIG, then took the floor. In "Pact for the Future and the Declaration on Future Generations: a reflection on meaningful youth participation in Internet governance", she underlined the important role of youth in debate on internet governance but called for people to avoid the tokenisation of youth participation.
“If you want to invest and support young people, look at the different projects that allow you, your people to grow and how they will also come into your companies as full, rounded people who know a little bit about the space and who are keen and excited and passionate, who are excited to meet other people”, she said.
Sandra Hoferichter, Secretary General of the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG), the European IGF, underlined the importance of the role the IGF plays in promoting the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance.
“Forums like this should be seen as a place for education, because what we are experiencing there is knowledge transfer in the first place, but also an education and an understanding for each other on what the issues are. What might be an issue for one stakeholder group for one region in the world is not an issue for another”, she said.
In this vein, Hoferichter announced that in collaboration with the Internet Society, the IGF is preparing to publish a special brochure to mark 50 years of the internet. The brochure is aimed at helping young participants, parliamentarians and governments understand how the internet works, as well as offering additional context on geopolitical challenges such as fragmentation and hybrid attacks on communications infrastructure.
Commenting on the initiative, David Frautschy, Senior Director for European Government and Regulatory Affairs at the Internet Society, noted that the internet of today has little in common with the network of 15-20 years ago, and that it is essential for stakeholders to understand the nature of today’s internet. “We wanted to explain how it works because only by understanding how it works can we try to protect it”, he said.
An opportunity to push for change
Speaking after the event, EURid Youth Committee member Paulo Glowacki explained that the .eu Day was an opportunity for the committee to call for change on behalf of the younger generation, “showing and doing outreach for the activities we're doing while pushing for policy proposals or ideas with different stakeholders that we're working on”.
“I thought that it was a brilliant opportunity to really interact with many different stakeholders, not only Europe, not only the Youth Committee, but across the board”, he said.
Kristjan Burgess of UNESCO emphasised that events like this are crucial in order to bring together all the different stakeholder groups. “We need the expertise of journalists. We need the expertise of fact checkers. We need the platforms to play their role. And we need to have the political and policy perspective there as well”, he said.
Enjoy the video recap of the day!