Report: Joint Committee consultation on online disinformation and media/digital literacy, including social media and fake news

Dr Sarah Anne Dunne

26. 11. 2024. A report from January of this year, from Center co-directors Eugenia Siapera and Elizabeth Farries, was recently published via the House of the Oireachtas’  Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media on the State’s response to online disinformation and media/digital literacy, including social media and fake news.

The submission made several recommendations which were reiterated in the Joint Committee’s report to the Oireachtais House, as highlighted below.

  • The Centre used its platform here to emphasise the relationship between disinformation and harm: “The UCD Centre for Digital Policy states that disinformation frequently correlates with other forms of online harm, including social media addiction, social media influence operations leading to electoral interference, and increasing numbers of users joining non-mainstream platforms.”
  • The Centre highlighted the need for transparency and data access in developing a robust understanding of disinformation patterns: “. The UCD Centre for Digital Policy outlines that information from digital platforms will enable researchers to understand the nature of online disinformation and better inform policy makers and
    regulators.”
  • The amplification of disinformation by design via social media networks was argued by the Centre.
  • The Centre specifically recognised alternative and non-mainstream sites as “extreme public spheres” where disinformation is a primary concern: “In the extreme public sphere, users excluded from mainstream platforms find smaller alternative and emerging platforms that serve as infrastructure for the far right and other extremist movements. Content hosted in the extreme public sphere contains a large volume of disinformation and such forums can radicalise users and push them to more
    extreme content.”
  • The need to address online disinformation in relation to and cooperation with community interests and to better support civil society stakeholders was featured.
  •  “The UCD Centre for Digital Policy recommends a focus on systems, processes and risk assessment on the part of regulators” that included a move away from profiling practices and towards systemic risk assessment on alt-tech platforms which use alternative business structures and are not considered as Very Large Online Platforms Under the DSA.
  • The Centre also addressed concerns related to surveillance counter-measures to disinformation, pointing to the risk posed to vulnerable groups such as LGBTQ+ children and human rights defenders.
  • Recommendations to improve digital and media literacy skills were suggested by the Centre: “media literacy initiatives should be responsive to new research on harms including the harm of platform addiction, and should engage with educational institutes to outline how the risk of addiction impacts vulnerable groups such as children.”

Read the full report from the Centre below and access the Oireachtas Report here.

2024-11-06_submission-ucd-centre-for-digital-policy_en
Skip to content