Romanian appointed to EU group working on strategy against fake news

The European Commission has appointed 39 experts to a new High Level Group (HLEG) on fake news and online disinformation. A Romanian university professor is one of the 39 experts who will contribute to the development of an EU-level strategy on how to tackle fake news, which is to be presented in spring 2018. Professor dr. Madeleine de Cock Buning from Utrecht University, who is specialised in Intellectual Property, Copyright and Media and Communication Law, is nominated to chair the group, the European Commission announced. The group comprises representatives of the civil society, social media platforms, news media organisations, journalists and academia. Romanian Alina Bârgăoanu is one of the experts appointed to the group. She is a university professor and the dean of the Faculty of Communication and Public Relations of the National School of Political and Administrative Studies (SNSPA) Bucharest. The list of members also includes Rasmus Nielsen from Reuters Institute for Journalism Oxford, Divina Frau-Meigs from Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Olaf Steenfadt from Reporters sans frontières, Dimitar Dimitrov from Wikimedia, Raegan MacDonald from Mozilla Firefox, Nicklas Lundblad from Google, Stephen Turner from Twitter, and Richard Allan from Facebook. “The High Level Expert Group will advise the Commission on scoping the phenomenon of fake news, defining the roles and responsibilities of relevant stakeholders, grasping the international dimension, taking stock of the positions at stake, and formulating recommendations,” the European Commission said. The group members were selected by the European Commission experts from more than 300 applications received. The group met for the first time on Monday, January 15. It is expected to deliver a report which will feed into the Commission Communication on fake news and online disinformation planned for late April 2018. Facebook starts anti-fake news campaign in Romania AFP analysis: Fake news fuel EU-scepticism in Romania Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com