European Parliament calls out politicians who abuse the term ‘fake news’
The civil liberties committee passed a resolution saying the phrase should not be used to ‘discredit critical voices’
The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee voted this week in favor of a resolution calling on politicians not to intentionally misuse the term “fake news” to attack legitimate reporting that is critical of their political conduct.
The resolution’s authors recognized that “fake news,” the practice of widely distributing provably false news stories, is a real problem that has undermined elections and public institutions in Europe.
But the resolution — essentially an advisory report on media pluralism and freedom in Europe — noted that claims of fake news “should never be aimed at undermining public trust in the media and at discrediting and criminalising critical voices.”
MEP Barbara Spinelli of Central Italy, who drafted the resolution, said in a statement that freedom of expression is a fundamental human right that serves both a personal and societal interest. That means it necessarily “protects information and ideas that may shock, offend and disturb.”
“The report stresses the need to protect whistle-blowers and encryption-related rights, calls for the chilling effects of defamation laws to be recognised, warns against arbitrary impositions of states of emergency, and insists on the opportunity to invest in digital literacy to empower citizens and online users,” she explained in a statement.
The E.U. Parliament’s Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs voted 44 to 3 in favor of the resolution, which has taken on new urgency following the brutal murders of two investigative journalists.
The resolution was first introduced in committee in December and explicitly condemned the October killing of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Galizia died in a car attack bomb in retaliation for her work investigating corruption claims found in the Panama Papers.
Since then a second journalist, Slovakian Ján Kuciak, has also been slain.
Kuciak and his fiancée were fatally shot in February after a professional contract killer broke into their home. No one has been charged in the murder, which was apparently linked to Kuciak’s investigation of the Italian mafia in Slovakia.
The E.U. resolution on media freedom expressed “deep concern about the abuse and violence being committed against journalists in the EU and called for an independent regulatory body to be set up in cooperation with journalist organisations to monitor and report violence and threats.”
It now heads to the full Parliament, which will debate the resolution in plenary session on April 16. A vote is scheduled the following day.
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