A recent study on the European Union’s efforts to curb digital disinformation reveals a significant discrepancy between the EU’s regulatory goals and the priorities of major online platforms. The EU’s 2018 Code of Practice on Disinformation (CPD), a form of “soft regulation” that relies on voluntary compliance, has shown mixed results, with tech companies prioritizing themes that align with their business interests over those related to democratic rights and transparency.
A study made by Gabriela Borz, Fabrizio De Francesco, Thomas L. Montgomerie and Michael Peter Bellis, published in Policy Studies, vol. 45 (2024) shows that the EU developed the CPD in 2018 as a voluntary initiative to address the challenges of digital campaigning, such as foreign election interference and the use of user data by companies like Cambridge Analytica. The code, which involves platforms like Facebook (now Meta), Google, Twitter (now X), Microsoft, and Mozilla, includes 16 commitments across five key areas: scrutiny of ad placement, political and issue-based advertising, integrity of services, empowering consumers, and empowering the research community.
Asymmetric Priorities
The study, which analyzed the annual reports submitted by the platforms in 2019, found a clear “asymmetric responsiveness” to the CPD’s themes. While the EU’s priorities are centered on protecting democracy and citizens’ rights, online corporations are more focused on risks related to profit, reputation, and liability. This difference in focus is evident in how companies allocate attention in their reports. For example, all companies failed to discuss “democratic rights and freedom of expression” to the same extent as the EU’s CPD. In fact, Google and Mozilla discussed the theme the least, with Google only recognizing the importance of fundamental rights in 1% of its report, and Mozilla at 0%, according to the study results.
Instead, platforms devoted a large portion of their reports to themes like “integrity of services” and “empowerment of users,” areas where they showed higher responsiveness and implementation.
Microsoft, for instance, highlighted service integrity the most, dedicating 17% of its report to the theme. Similarly, Mozilla, in stark contrast to its lack of attention to service integrity, frequently discussed empowering users, with 21% of its report providing ways its services can help users make informed decisions.
Beyond Symbolic Commitment
Despite the perceived ineffectiveness of soft regulation, the study’s findings challenged a key assumption: that companies would only offer “symbolic commitment” to avoid hard law and future compliance costs. The analysis showed that platforms generally have a higher level of formal commitment—written pledges to implement principles and actions—than symbolic commitment. Formal commitments were especially high in areas that platforms already prioritized, such as “integrity of services” and “coordinated/responsibility”.
This is backed by concrete examples of implementation. Facebook, for instance, reported the closure of two billion fake accounts in 2019 and the removal of a large portion of hate speech posts before they were even reported by users. Google highlighted that its automated systems flagged 7.8 million YouTube videos, leading to the removal of over 9 million by June 2019. Similarly, Twitter reported a 60% faster response time to appeals and collaborated with UNESCO on a media literacy campaign.
The Limits of Soft Law
While the findings suggest that soft regulation can be effective in areas where regulatory themes are already a priority for corporations, the study also reveals its limitations. Implementation was low for less prioritized themes like “rights and freedoms,” with Facebook, Google, and Mozilla taking no actions in this area. The study also found that corporate governance changes, such as creating new departments or allocating grants, were more aligned with symbolic commitments. This suggests that “soft governance permits companies to window dress low compliance by reporting cost effective operational changes”.
The study acknowledges its limitations, including its reliance on company reports and the inability to verify the information or the motivations behind compliance. However, it provides a crucial first step in empirically measuring the effectiveness of soft law in the digital realm and contributes to the ongoing debate about whether hard governance, with its enforcement mechanisms and sanctions, is necessary to ensure full compliance. The conclusion of the study: for soft regulation to work, there must be a match between the priorities of the regulator and those of the companies being regulated.
The findings of this study are promoted by UBB Core, The Career Guidance for Researchers Center from ”Babeș-Bolyai” University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
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