Click Here For Outrage: Disinformation in the European Parliamentary Elections 2019

Published: 26th June 2020
Written By: Chloe Colliver

This report details the findings of ISD’s research on disinformation activities during the European Parliamentary Elections in 2019. It lays out the tactics and actors involved in covert disinformation campaigns, the targets of their activities, and what that might mean for the future of disinformation around elections and beyond. It evaluates the responses from tech companies and governments to these challenges during the election campaign and in the immediate aftermath, culminating in a set of concrete proposals for filling the gaps that this assessment clearly signposts. And finally, it seeks to provide an honest review of the successes and challenges of this kind of model for understanding and mitigating the impact of disinformation, highlighting what remained elusive as well as what was possible, and proposes a series of lessons to be taken forward into upcoming elections and ongoing digital regulation debates across the globe.