Disinformation and conspiracy theories on Facebook are out of control! But Europe could finally start to deal with the problem — and they’re asking citizens to share their views.
This is a public survey -- but it’s not so public friendly. So SumOfUs staff have been through it and created a simple user guide to help navigate the questions without expert knowledge.
The whole process will take around 10 minutes. That may feel too long but honestly if we all take those 10 minutes we could finally force governments to stand up to the tech giants -- and clamp down on the hate and lies. Sounds worth it!
Open the consultation by clicking the button below. We recommend keeping it open in another tab so you can follow our step by step guide -- the answers are suggested by experts but you should answer any way you like!
Step 1: Registration
Click on ‘register’.
Fill in your details and click ‘Create an account’.
Wait for an email in your inbox to complete the registration process (the system is slow and it may take a few minutes to arrive - don’t give up!)
Click on the link in the email to set a password. When you are directed to a new page, click ‘proceed’.
Go back to the survey window and click ‘Access via EU Login’.
Step 2: About You
Where it asks how you're giving your contribution, choose ‘EU citizen’ or ‘non-EU citizen’ from the dropdown menu and a shorter version of the survey will automatically load.
For ‘publication privacy settings’, SumOfUs recommends allowing your contribution to be published, but it’s entirely up to you.
Step 3: Safety and Responsibilities
Almost all of the most important questions for the fight against disinformation are on this page of the survey -- we’ve highlighted the most crucial ones below.
If you’re short on time feel free to skip through to the end of the survey after this section -- but if you have a few minutes, do carry on, there’s several more critical questions to come.
Section 1, ‘Main Issues and experiences’
Parts A, B and C: If you have direct experience of illegal and harmful activities on social media please share them here -- the more we show this stuff is affecting citizens’ day-to-day lives the better.
Part C, question 2 - To what extent do you agree with the following statements related to online disinformation?
The most important things to do here are:
- Tick “fully agree” for the statement “Online platforms can easily be manipulated by foreign governments or other coordinated groups to spread divisive messages”.
- Tick “fully agree” for the statement “Disinformation is spread by manipulating algorithmic processes on online platforms”.
- Tick “fully disagree” for the statement “Online platforms can be trusted that their internal practices sufficiently guarantee democratic integrity, pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and gender equality”.
Part D - feel free to leave blank
Step 4: Clarifying responsibilities for online platforms and other digital services
Q.1 What responsibilities (i.e. legal obligations) should be imposed on online platforms and under what conditions?
We recommend ticking “Yes, by all online platforms” for most of the suggested obligations -- check the table below for the 2 exceptions.
Jump to Q.12 -- Please rate the necessity of the following measures for addressing the spread of disinformation online. Please rate from 1 (not at all necessary) to 5 (essential) each option below.
We recommend ticking “5 (essential)” for all but one of the measures listed.
The rest of the questions on this page are specific to you and you can choose whether to answer them or not.
Q.20 asks what the EU should do about the social media algorithms responsible for promoting shocking and divisive content -- our view is they should make the amplification and monetisation of disinformation and hate speech illegal, but feel free to write whatever you like.
When you have answered all the questions you want to on this page, scroll to the bottom and click “next”.
Step 5: Reviewing the liability regime of digital services acting as intermediaries
This section is about the responsibilities tech giants should have for what’s published on their platforms -- at the moment companies like Facebook are only obliged to take down illegal content once they’re made aware of it.
The questions look a bit technical, but your answers don’t need to be -- even just taking a moment to write in the last box that social media platforms should be liable for the content they post could help get the message through to regulators.
After that you can also skip through the next few pages until you get to “Final Remarks”.
Step 6: Final remarks
Writing a personal message in the box ‘other final comments’ is crucial -- if this space is blank or copy and pasted, regulators will treat all our submissions as the same.
Write a personal message about why this issue matters to you, and why you want the EU to take action to stop the flood of hate and disinformation online.
Step 7: You’re done!
Send your form by clicking the blue submit button.
Thank you for taking the time to protect us all from disinformation!
More information
If you’re not terrified about Facebook, you haven’t been paying attention
Guardian. 26 July 2020.
Guardian. 26 July 2020.
Facebook creates fact-checking exemption for climate deniers
Heated. 24 June 2020.
Heated. 24 June 2020.
Consultation on the Digital Services Act package
European Commission. 2 June 2020.
European Commission. 2 June 2020.