42nd Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities - Strasbourg, France, 22-24 March 2022
Thematic debate: Fake news, threats and violence – pressures on mayors in the current crises in Europe
23 March 2022
Local democracy – a victim of fake news and hate speech
The COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have added to the pressure on local elected representatives, who are being targeted by fake news and online hate speech. The Council of Europe Congress has been making active efforts to combat these phenomena since 2018. The published results of a ground-breaking scientific and academic project launched in 2021 in collaboration with the Congress with the aim of gaining a better understanding of these phenomena were presented during the thematic debate held on Wednesday 23 March 2022 during the 42nd Session of the Congress. This research was informed by the experiences of members of the Congress, which will be drawn on in the report that is currently being prepared by the Governance Committee of the Congress, the aims of which were outlined before the Chamber of Local Authorities by Ms Wilma Delissen Van Tongerlo, Co-rapporteur (Netherlands, ILDG).
Fake news and hate speech targeted at local and regional elected representatives have become dramatically more widespread in recent years, particularly amid the rise of the far right in Europe and then the health crisis, COVID-19 vaccination programmes and, more recently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Attacks on social media often lead to physical attacks. The tragic death in 2019 of the mayor of Gdansk, Paweł Adamowicz, the attack on the mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, in 2015 and “ordinary” online bullying, which has become a daily reality for many elected representatives, are increasingly deterring members of the public from running for office in local elections.
Learning to use tools to combat fake news more effectively
Reacting to a phenomenon that can paralyse local democracy by depriving it of the lifeblood and the capabilities it so badly needs has become a priority for the Congress. The debates on this issue held by the Congress since 2018 have given its members opportunities to share their approaches and experiences and a number of strategies to combat fake news and online hate speech. These discussions have highlighted the need for local elected representatives to learn more about technical, psychological, legal, media-based and, in particular, political tools to track and halt the spread of the phenomenon.
No scientific study had ever addressed the complexity of the situation at local level, which is why the Congress lent its support to a collaborative project involving researchers and experts at academic institutions in Ludwigsburg, Budapest, Bucharest, Košice and Vienna entitled “Open Government and Open Data against Fake News and Hate Speech”. Presented by Professor Robert Müller-Török during the debate on 23 March, the results of the project, which are set out in a publication entitled “COUNTERFAKE: A scientific basis for a policy fighting fake news and hate speech”, will help local elected representatives to gain a better understanding of how disinformation works and to learn how to use various tools to fight back against it. Condemning these practices is not sufficient unless one understands the psychological mechanisms that induce people to tend to believe only information that confirms their opinions and political identities.
An issue that affects many elected representatives
Following a section about the definitions of “fake news” and “hate speech”, how they operate in practice and the criteria that set them apart from freedom of expression, the authors of the publication examine their effects on elected representatives, the economy and society. In the final chapter, which describes the contribution made by the questionnaire that was sent to the members of the Congress, these effects are brought to light through an empirical analysis which reveals that “more than one out of 10 delegates frequently experiences hate speech on a personal level, well over a half either at times or frequently”. These worrying figures explain why it is becoming increasingly difficult to find new elected representatives at local and regional level. Several delegates to the Congress talked about their experiences and concerns in this regard during the debate in the Chamber.
According to Pauline Sterrer (EPP, Austria), “75% of local elected representatives in Austria are exposed to online hate speech and 42% of municipal elected representatives have been threatened directly”, and this prompted the Austrian Parliament to enact a law to tackle online hate speech which places a duty on platforms to monitor this behaviour closely and curb it. The incident involving the president of the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, whose telephone number and address were published on the Internet with a call to retaliate against him for the restrictive measures imposed during the pandemic, was cited by Belinda Gottardi (SOC, Italy) to illustrate the growing power of disinformation and threats against health workers during the coronavirus pandemic. “COVID left us at the mercy of the anti-vaxxers!” said Jean-Paul Bastin (Belgium, EPP), whose speech emphasised the scale of the “representatives’ blues” that causes elected representatives to suffer burnout, leave office and refrain from standing for election again.
Other representatives highlighted how the problem affects small towns (José Benlloch Fernández, Spain) and rural areas (Marius Wallstein, youth delegate from Germany), where everyone knows mayors and where they live on the one hand, and people are more exposed to the risk of disinformation on the other hand. According to Tetiana Hoian (Ukraine, EPP), this risk has become very great in the context of the war in Ukraine, which Russia has called a “special military operation” – a kind of disinformation which, in her opinion, can be likened to a weapon of war targeted at public opinion in Russia as well as civilians in Ukraine.
Open data and open government: tools to tackle fake news
How can this problem be addressed? Scientific research conducted in collaboration with the Congress reveals that coercive and technical measures are not always very effective in a democracy. Although the publication lists a number of legal and technical means of tackling hate campaigns or disinformation on the Internet, the legal systems of liberal countries are such that these attacks are difficult to block. In order to preserve democracy, the most appropriate solution would be to increase transparency through universally accessible data (open data) and more open and participatory governance at local level (open government), which will boost public confidence in elected representatives.
The erosion of trust in mainstream media and political elites provides fertile ground for conspiracist speech which ruins and claims human lives. This is why the publication’s authors believe that more open government and access to information can “decrease the level of hate speech and fake news or at least significantly lower the portion of the electorate falling for that”. During the debate, this idea received backing from Alexander Boomgars (Netherlands, SOC), who highlighted the duty of local elected representatives to provide more objective information: “We mustn’t take things too far when it suits us!” Other representatives, such as Cemal Bas (EPP, Turkey), mentioned coded racist speech in some media in Europe, while Zoé ElkærNicot (youth delegate, Denmark) and Zohra Darras (SOC, France) raised the issue of statements that discriminate against women made by local elected representatives themselves. So efforts to combat fake news and hate speech should also be supported by positive examples set by elected representatives.
Suggesting responses and methods of action to local elected representatives is the aim of the new report that is being prepared by the Governance Committee of the Congress, which was presented by Wilma Delissen Van Tongerlo, Co-rapporteur (Netherlands, ILDG), and will be debated during the October session of the Congress. It will draw inspiration from the personal and collective experiences of Congress members in order to make effective recommendations to relieve the pressure put on local elected representatives by threats and online disinformation. The report will take account of the new generation of hybrid and information warfare, including cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns in the context of the war waged by the Russian Federation in Ukraine.