How the European Union wants to control information thanks to Big Techs. Part 5) Objectives, mechanisms and context of the “infox” law

2023-06-16 17:00:00

Multi-part survey – How the European Union wants to control information thanks to Big Techs. From fact-checking to American intelligence agencies: the origins of a digital prison.

INTRODUCTION – During the Covid-19 crisis, the main French media relayed, without any real distance, government communication and the positions of the pharmaceutical industry. The defense of lockdowns and “all-vaccine” has become an unassailable axiom, defying any reasonable and balanced scientific approach. Instead of investigating, verifying and varying sources in order to feed a contradictory debate, “fact-checking” cells, integrated within press editorial offices and financed by Big Techs, have bypassed the role of the journalist and torpedoed any critical and complex debate. Under the pretext of fighting disinformation, these invasive partnerships have been supported by the European Union, including with subsidies. They reveal a new mechanism capable of influencing public opinion on any subject. Behind the scenes, other troubled actors shape the information, think-tanks but also various international intelligence agencies. Within this setting, journalism is gradually being transformed into a disturbing tool for controlling and monitoring ideas, with attempts to muzzle freedom of expression. Is Europe becoming a digital prison of information?

PART 5 – With such a bundle of rights-of-way on our societies, the risk that Big Techs and their “digital platforms” pose a problem of disinformation is very high.

The “infox” law of 2018 does not attack their influence. Even though its role is not to attack these digital monopolies or to regulate all aspects of them, it is in no way concerned about the possibility that Big Techs not only become a vector of information, but an actor acting in the matter.

The legislator has in fact only had two requirements towards digital multinationals: on the one hand, be able to request access to “cooking recipes” in data managementin other words a) the famous algorithms, to note an “automatic, massive” dissemination of dubious information; on the other hand b) the implementation of user control tools.

a) Algorithms are “the reactor core of platforms”. They make it possible to target users with advertising. They can just as much favor, according to their computer code, the dissemination of certain informative content to the detriment of others. Public opinion may therefore be influenced by an artificially promoted publication.

b) The setting up of control tools is imposed on operators, with the setting up of signaling “buttons” and the obligation to have forwarding links to “recognized sites” when a subject is sensitive or likely to contain false information. This system makes it possible to transform everyone into a “monitor-informant” of content deemed to be heterodox.

If intelligence services around the world are already theoretically dealing with the risks associated with the use of means of communication by terrorist groups, sects or other extremist organisations, it is clear that a completely different profile worries the political power and the legislator. This is the plotter.

Having become the “ideal target” to illustrate the risks of “disinformation”, his portrait is repeated in an obsessive way as if to better fan the flame of conformity: either a kind of dunce, a little blogger who would like to explain to the world that the Earth is flat; or an activist driven by a cause that would be dangerous for society.

It will be noted that the decried “conspiracy theorists” often have as their first theory not to share the ideology of the political power in place. Then appear the limits of the benevolence of the politician in power who, on the pretext of a danger that would threaten our society, yields to the temptation of instrumentalization.

There is a great temptation, by marking them with the seal of conspiracy, to complicate the dissemination of ideas, which are however argued and rational, but defended by opposition, social actors with divergent thoughts or even “whistleblowers”.

Context of the advent of the law

The temptation is just as great to shape an information control system that goes only in one direction, to the point of itself producing false information as long as it falls within the framework of the dominant ideology. or one party.

The very origins of the “infox” law raise questions about this. Because it is a very singular event that inspired Emmanuel Macron and his lieutenants in the proposed law: the controversy over the intervention of Russian interests in the 2016 American presidential election campaign.

At the time, then in the years that followed, the specter of a Russian influence that would have helped Donald Trump to be elected president of the United States constantly haunted public debates across the Atlantic. A platform operator, Facebook, was first singled out. The latter would have left his algorithms at the mercy of foreign manipulative forces.

Then, Donald Trump himself would have participated in the affair, maintaining murky ties with Russia. Problem… The involvement of candidate Trump has never been demonstrated at the time, nor any direct link with possible financial support from producers of “fake news” from Russia. In fact, he was even established that it was all just a fable.

This false scandal was however relayed massively by all the French media, which remained much less curious about the role of Big Techs such as Facebook, which could really be a problem and for several candidates.

Were they afraid of losing a few subsidies along the way? Fin 2021, the Durham-Sussmann-Baker case shows that this assumption of Russian ties to Trump was completely fanciful (see ici). It emanated from a bitter partisan struggle between Republicans and Democrats, with the latter surprisingly spying on Trump’s campaign.

Whatever one’s opinion about Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and the partisan wars specific to American life (which therefore concern both parties), one element emerges: the extreme politicization of issues related to information, the taste of the media dependent on Big Techs to take a stand for particular political sides.

And when an executive wants, in this context, to write laws to sort out “good” and “bad” information, the situation of free expression and investigative journalism seems very delicate.

In his 2018 speech to the press, under the guise of maintaining free expression, Emmanuel Macron left no doubt about his desire to control information, in particular through its “hierarchy”. Who decides upstream on the value of information? To what type of “recognized” site are we redirected once Big Techs decide to spot “fake news”?

What if this is a government “disinfox” page or a website of an administrative branch under its authority? The spiral threatens the very exercise of free political speech. The media treatment of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict provides another illustration.

• Coming soon, part 6: Prioritization and the return of censorship