We provide extensive information on all of the political and legal initiatives taken by the European Union to tackle the issue of disinformation. Given that disinformation is multifaceted and affects many policy areas, some initiatives only address one dimension of disinformation. In addition, while not every action displayed here relates to disinformation as a whole, these actions have nonetheless formed part of the overarching discussion of how to fight against disinformation. Wherever possible, analyses of these actions have also been included. Find out more about the EU’s legal and policy outputs by clicking on the sections below.

Action Plan against Disinformation

This article presents the actions undertaken at European level to tackle the spread of online disinformation.

EU Code of Practice

Representatives of online platforms, leading social networks, advertisers and advertising industry agreed to a self-regulatory Code of Practice to address the spread of online disinformation and fake news. Each platform committed to the Code presented its individual road-map and committed to publish monthly reports on the implementation of the Code of Practice.

Since its initiation the Code of Practice, or CoP, has expanded to include members of the advertising industry and trade associations.

In June of 2020, under the 10 June 2020 Joint Communication “Tackling COVID-19 disinformation – Getting the facts, platform signatories began producing monthly reports specifically on their actions to promote authoritative health content and reduce disinformation related to the pandemic.

The most recent set of reports, published in February 2021, can be found here.