EU detects no major incidents during European elections despite rise of disinformation

BRUSSELS, Jul 29 () –

The European Union said on Monday that it had not recorded any significant incidents during the European elections held on 6-9 June, despite warning of the rise of disinformation surrounding the electoral process.

In the European Digital Services Council’s report on the European elections, the EU has indicated that it “did not detect any significant incidents of disinformation during the elections” despite an increase in disinformation related to the vote in the weeks leading up to it. In this regard, there were also no incidents in the use of Artificial Intelligence to promote episodes that would lead to altering the elections.

“Most of the incidents have been detected and exposed in their early stages,” says the report by the group of experts made up of member states and chaired by the European Commission. “It is possible that the growing awareness of the risks of disinformation together with the strong willingness of all stakeholders could have deterred actors,” it adds.

In this regard, the EU indicates that the implementation of the Digital Services Act has increased the level of preparation during the European elections, as well as contact with digital platforms to curb this phenomenon and “no known systemic incidents were recorded.”

Brussels welcomes this achievement and attributes it to the implementation of the new European digital legislation. This has led to greater involvement of platforms in dealing with content on their own media, as well as the application of more effective methods to respond to disinformation.

In particular, they mention the work of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) for having enabled an unprecedented capacity to monitor the digital information space and quickly flag threats.

The report concludes by saying that EU tools to counter threats in the information environment have proven useful in the context of the June European elections, but warns that the tactics, techniques and procedures used by the actors behind disinformation may evolve in the future, so the EU is already looking ahead to the upcoming US elections.