Recommendations against disinformation
On 12 September 2024, German Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser accepted the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly “Forum against Fakes”. It contains proposals and measures to combat disinformation.
Misinformation on the internet is a threat to democracy, as it can undermine citizens' trust in politics, public discourse and state institutions. A large majority of people in Germany also recognise this danger. The Bertelsmann Stiftung developed recommendations for dealing with disinformation in the participatory project "Forum against Fakes" with the help of citizens and presented these to politicians.
15 recommendations and 28 measures
The Citizens' Assembly has discussed and developed 15 recommendations and 28 measures to combat disinformation. The recommendations are now aimed at politics, the media, business, science and civil society, but individual responsibility also plays an important role in dealing with disinformation.
Overall, it is clear that the tension between freedom of expression and combating disinformation is difficult to resolve. The most important keys are education and media literacy, not only compulsory in schools, but also available to all groups in society.
Independent contact point for citizens and journalists
The Citizens' Assembly calls for all available means to be used to label disinformation and content created by artificial intelligence and to curb the spread of disinformation. This requires, for example, an independent contact point for citizens and journalists with experts in advisory bodies.
The platforms shall also be held accountable: Their design should encourage them to cite the sources of images and quoted facts. They should be obliged to invest 1 per cent of their annual global turnover in combating disinformation. The algorithms should ensure that content that shows signs of disinformation is not disseminated. Quality journalism should be encouraged to become involved in educational work on the effects of disinformation on democracy and society.
Last but not least, users can do a lot themselves. This requires awareness-raising and education about disinformation as well as a more conscious approach to posting and sharing content on social media that is potentially harmful to democracy.
Online voting on recommendations
From 5 June to 2 July 2024, all citizens were able to take part in the "Forum against Fakes" online and rate the Citizens' Assembly's final recommendations for action: 216,534 participants voted 623,048 times on the 28 measures proposed by the Citizens' Assembly.
The citizens' assessment of the recommendations was predominantly positive, but varied. Each recommended measure received more approval than rejection, but none received more than 75 per cent approval. Measures aimed at increasing the transparency of information and media content and giving people a better understanding of where information comes from were particularly well received. For example, the labelling of content created by artificial intelligence received 73 percent approval.
Actively tackling disinformation and developing solutions
Measures relating to the user behaviour of individuals tended to receive lower approval. For example, the measure ‘Users should be given a cooling-off period to decide whether they want to publish posts with alleged disinformation’ received 48 per cent approval.
It is clear to see that most people in the country are in favour of politicians, platform operators, the media and civil society actively tackling the issue of disinformation and developing solutions.
The Citizens' Assembly's recommendations have been compiled with the voting results from the online participation in a citizens' report. This was presented to the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Home Affairs (BMI) and other interest groups on 12 September 2024.
Disinformation is a problem for society
Manipulated information gives the impression that it is real, verifiable news. This is how false information is deliberately spread. According to a study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, 84 per cent of people in Germany say that disinformation on the internet is a major problem for our society.
With the project "Forum against Fakes - Together for a Strong Democracy", the foundation wants to actively counter the danger posed by disinformation. This is because the spread of targeted misinformation can undermine trust in politics and the media as well as the democratic opinion-forming and decision-making process.
Germany-wide participation project
The "Forum against Fakes - Together for a Strong Democracy" was launched on 24 January 2024. This is a Germany-wide participation project organised by the Bertelsmann Foundation in cooperation with the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Homeland, the Mercator Foundation and the Michael Otto Foundation for Sustainability. The project is supported by the news portal t-online and the #UseTheNews initiative.
The aim of the project is to educate and sensitise citizens about the dangers of disinformation. The recommendations for action developed in the forum are aimed at decision-makers at federal and state level, as well as other interest groups such as platform operators, the media and civil society organisations.
Online participation and citizens' assembly
In order to involve as many people as possible and achieve the best possible result, the "Forum against Fakes - Together for a strong democracy" project combined two different types of participation:
1. The entire population was called upon: anyone and everyone could get involved in a broad-based online participation process. From 24 January to 1 April 2024, everyone in Germany was invited to participate online in the question: "Fakes and manipulation: What should we do to protect our democracy?". People were able to submit their own suggestions for dealing with disinformation and vote on proposals from other participants. The response was high: around 200,000 people took part online and submitted around 1,600 suggestions on how to tackle fake news.
Citizens see fakes and manipulation as threat to democracy
The analysis of the results has shown that citizens see fakes and manipulation as a real threat to democracy. The participants identified three main areas in which they would like to see improvements: "education and awareness-raising", "media practice" and social networks. Specifically, they called for a strengthening of media skills and stricter action against fake news on the part of social media.
The participants are also making demands of the established media. For example, there should be a clear separation between news and opinions. Concerns about influence from foreign states, on the other hand, only play a subordinate role.
Citizens formulated recommendations
2. A diverse group of 120 citizens discussed the results of the participation with each other in a citizens' assembly and worked on the most important points. The mini-public was a reflection of the population according to the criteria of age, gender, regional origin, level of education and migration background. The citizens' assembly began its work on 15 March 2024.
In addition, the citizens' assembly had the opportunity to discuss issues with experts. With this knowledge, the mini-public was able to deal with the most relevant topics in a well-founded manner. As a result, the citizens' assembly formulated concrete recommendations for action for politicians, which were summarised in a so-called citizens' report.
Second phase of online participation
A second phase of online participation in the Citizens' Assembly proposals ran from 22 April to 12 May 2024. Interested parties were able to comment on and vote on five of the assembly's preliminary recommendations. 9,620 people took advantage of this opportunity. Votes were cast 11,100 times and 1,703 comments were submitted. Four of the five recommendations were accepted with over 75 per cent approval.
A look at the results reveals that freedom of expression plays an important role for the participants. In addition, a tension between the desire for regulation or prosecution and the need for freedom of expression can be seen in the comments.
Feedback discussed
The votes and comments were analysed in detail. From 24 - 26 May, the Citizens' Assembly "Forum against Fakes" met for the last time in Berlin to discuss the feedback from the second online participation phase. This feedback were used by the assembly participants to improve and finalise their recommendations.
The final online participation phase started on 5 June and ended on 2 July 2024, when all citizens could vote again and identify the most important recommendations to politicians on how to deal with disinformation.
More than 424,000 people took part across all online participation phases. In total, more than 1.5 million votes were cast.
Federal government wants to utilise project results
Finally, on 12 September 2024, the citizens' assembly handed over the citizens' report with policy recommendations to the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Home Affairs (BMI) and the Bertelsmann Foundation. The citizens' report is also addressed to other ministries, parliamentary committees and politicians from the federal and state governments. The BMI uses the policy recommendations contained in the report to develop its strategy for dealing with disinformation, among other things.
Federal Minister of the Interior Faeser explained at the presentation of the Citizens‘ Assembly's Citizens’ Report: ‘When it comes to measures against disinformation, it is about nothing less than protecting our democracy. Foreign states, especially Russia, are using disinformation and propaganda to undermine the public's trust in our democratic system and its institutions. Thousands of false reports, manipulated images and misleading clips can be found online. How, despite all this, people can succeed in better recognising disinformation instead of falling for it - this is exactly what ‘Forum against Fakes’ is all about. (...) I would like to thank everyone involved for their voluntary and honorary commitment. We will now analyse the recommendations and examine the extent to which they can be incorporated into the BMI's further work in this area.’
Diversity of the population in the Citizens' Assembly
The Citizens' Assembly should reflect the diversity of the population in Germany. The following criteria were therefore used as a basis for the composition of the Citizens' Assembly: Regional origin (all federal states), community size (from cities and rural areas), gender, age, level of education and migration background. Apart from knowledge of German (at least level B2) as a basic requirement for participation in the mini-public, no special expertise was required. All residents aged 18 and over could take part.
In a first step, a large number of citizens were contacted at random. The random samples were drawn from randomly generated telephone numbers and from a market research database (Random Digit Dialing - RDD). In a second step, the interested parties were analysed according to the criteria of federal state, municipality size, gender, age, level of education and migration background and the quotas provided for this purpose. At the end of the process, a fixed group of 120 citizens formed the Citizens' Assembly “Forum against Fakes”.
Equal participation opportunities for all
In detail, this means that telephone numbers were randomly selected from telephone directories or randomly generated by computers in order to make contact. These mobile and landline numbers were called and people aged 18 and over were informed about the Citizens' Assembly. In theory, all residents of Germany with a landline or mobile phone connection had the chance to be called and take part in the mini-public.
Registration took place in two steps: people who met the criteria were invited to apply. Interested people then applied for the free places on the Citizens' Assembly. During both the telephone call and the application, it was checked whether the interested persons met the criteria for which there were still free places available. If this was the case, the second step took place, in which the citizens were bindingly registered. Other interested parties were placed on a waiting list. In the event of cancellations, suitable people from this pool of interested parties moved up.
"Participation is worthwhile"
Project manager Dominik Hierlemann from the Bertelsmann Foundation explains the purpose of the participation process: "When politicians develop new strategies for social challenges, we believe it is important to involve citizens. We need broad public participation on important political and social issues. That's why we initiated this project.
Participation processes in which as many people as possible can take part - with concrete ideas and proposals. Where do citizens see the greatest challenge? What is most important to them? Which proposals are most popular? Participation is worthwhile because we learn something new as people, because we engage with others, because we find out more about a topic. We all too often forget this aspect of democracy."
Debates ‘refreshing and invigorating’
This is also confirmed by members of the Citizens' Assembly. Melanie Peilstöcker from Ravensburg found the debates in the working groups "refreshing and invigorating". The 43-year-old business administration graduate and alternative practitioner for psychotherapy has gained a deeper respect for political decision-making processes from the debates: "It's always easy to grumble about politics. But I wouldn't want to swap places with the decision-makers. I found it complicated to derive concrete rules and recommendations." She has learnt: "There are no simple solutions to complex problems."
Cologne-based participant Christian Erichsen (60) describes the organisation, but also the discussions with the other participants at the "Forum against Fakes" as exemplary: "There was a culture of debate that I could only wish for," he says looking back. "I had the impression that a cross-section of society really came together. And that, despite all the differences of opinion and the difficult subject matter, everyone treated each other in a friendly and respectful manner."
Citizens' assemblies are good for democracy
Based on his own experience, Erichsen is convinced that citizens' assemblies are good for democracy. "It's clear that this won't take the wind out of the sails of all democracy sceptics. But such formats give citizens the feeling that we are listening and that we take your concerns seriously."