Regulating Disinformation in a Self-Regulatory Environment at the European Level?

While the original intent of the European regulatory approach was to assess laws and policies in relation to elections, the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing "infodemic" provided another relevant trigger for disinformation-related policymaking, based on the self-reporting of the platforms. Content analysis of all 57 so called “Covid-19 reports” of signatories of the European Code of Practice on Disinformation revealed fundamental shortcomings in the processes of current regulation as well as transparency problems in the reporting system itself, showing that regulation, standardisation, and transparency must be considered differently in our new communication order.