Organised as part of the Moldovan Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and under the umbrella of the New Democratic Pact for Europe, a High-Level Conference entitled Building Resilience to Disinformation and FIMI in Europe took place in Chisinau in Moldova on March 20. The Conference offered the opportunity for stakeholders from various member States to exchange critical experiences and explore mechanisms to collectively build a healthier, more resilient, and trustworthy information environment across Europe.
Following an opening address by the President of Moldova, the discussion focused on the experiences of Moldova, Ukraine and Romania in countering FIMI and promoting information integrity. There was a particular focus on the challenges of balancing rights and responsibilities in a fast-moving and challenging information environment.
Two panel sessions in the afternoon focused on the role of media literacy in countering disinformation.
The Council of Europe has already made significant efforts to counter the threat of disinformation and promote a healthy information environment. As part of these broader efforts, the first session, chaired by MLI National Coordinator, Martina Chapman, saw the official launch of two key strategic documents recently adopted by the CDMSI (the Steering Committee on Media and Information Society).
The National Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Strategies report, authored by formed MLI Chair, Prof. Brian O’Neill, is designed to help member states develop national MIL strategies and provide actionable steps to counter disinformation and promote information integrity.
The second strategic policy document launched at the conference was the ‘Resisting Disinformation: Ten building blocks to strengthen integrity. Report which aims to support Council of Europe member states in translating international standards into practical national measures to counter disinformation and promote information integrity. MLI Co-chair, Dr. Eillen Culloty was one of the international experts that contributed to the document, which features the Irish National Counter Disinformation Strategy as one of the highlighted promising practices.
The RESIST initiative (supported by the Council of Europe, EEA and Norway Grants) was also highlighted as an innovative programme to strengthen resilience to disinformation, empowering citizens to think critically and resist manipulative narratives.
The second panel of the afternoon, chaired by Brian O’Niell, focused on Media and Information Literacy Efforts to Build Information Integrity. Contributors included MLI’s Martina Chapman, Aneta Gonta of the Audiovisual Council of Moldova, Prof Vitor Tomé of the University of Lisbon, Cyril Ntone from the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie and Adeline Hulin of UNESCO.
You can watch a recording of the conference and read more about the work of the Council of Europe to counter disinformation on the Council of Europe website.
