European Association for viewers Interests
EAVI
EAVI is the non-profit organisation which has worked the longest on media literacy at EU level.
ID: 211406234638-53
Lobbying Activity
Response to European Democracy Action Plan
27 Aug 2020
EAVI welcomes the efforts of the European Commission intended to contribute to shape a context more apt to protect our democracies. Upon revision of the current EC process, EAVI’s understanding is that it is unnecessary here to reinforce further the need for urgently implementing measures in that direction (democracy). Indeed, it is already quite late. Prominent authors and the public debate already talk about living in a post-truth or post-democracy era.
We therefore take this opportunity to underline only a few specific points.
On Election integrity.
Overall the ability of people to form a coherent understanding of the world and consequently in making their participation in public life is becoming an impossible task. How can citizens participate responsibly in a democratic society if they cannot navigate news and make informed decisions? How is democracy to survive under these conditions? Even well before Covid-19 it was increasingly difficult for people to distinguish facts from opinions, information from blaring propaganda.
Concretely, we suggest discussions should be underpinned by the right of people to be correctly informed: Everyone should be able to access authoritative quality information, regularly and easily. In other words, it is a right to transparency. It is not rhetorical. It may very well be a right that exists already, a human right which has often been overlooked.
Back in 1948, the United Nations defined a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations setting out in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, RECEIVE and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers’.
This is often referred to as the right to express our opinions freely, including freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The declaration has contributed to a new path for peace and it certainly represents an essential human right. Seventy years of advances in technology and communication have changed the world. The advent of artificial intelligence promises even more dramatic changes to take place in the next decade, specifically in the way people will communicate and receive information.
Measures to be deployed should therefore be inspired by an enlarged scope of the interpretation of Article 19 to emphasise what is, in fact, already contained therein: the right of people to receive correct information and to be exposed to a plurality of sources, not just to a mainstream flow of polluted information in the interest of a few.
This human right pertains not just to the freedom of the messenger to speak up but also that of the recipient not to be overwhelmed by distracting empty information. This surely must also have been the intention behind the drafting of Article-19 at the time. In any case we think that if it would be drafted nowadays, it would take the capacity of properly receiving information into a clearer consideration.
Again, it is a very concrete strategic step. For the EC to follow this guiding principle would allow subsequent specific measures implemented to become much clearer. Placing recipients and citizens’ interests back into the debate would shift perspectives and represent a strategic opportunity for the EU to regain their citizens’ trust.
We recommend 1- to invite reflections about the right of people to receive information as per Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; 2- to emphasise the word transparency not be limited to sponsored content but encompassing stakeholders accountability and opportunities for research; 3- to keep ordinary people’s needs and interests in mind as a guiding principle.
For our other points on media literacy, disinformation and civil society's funding please refer to the attached contribution and feel free to contact us.
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