1.
COMPACT PROJECT
Bringing Social Media and Traditional Media Together
Deliverable:
Report on future policies and regulatory frameworks
1

2.
COMPACT H2020 Project
• The information is prepared by the team of
the COMPACT project (http://compact-media.eu/).
• COMPACT is a Coordination and Support Action funded
EuropeanCommission under framework Horizon 2020.
• The objective of the COMPACT project is to increase
awareness (including scientific, political, cultural, legal,
economic and technical areas) of the latest
technological discoveries among key stakeholders in
the context of social media and convergence.The
project will offer analyses and road maps of related
initiatives. In addition, extensive research on policies
and regulatory frameworks in media and content will
be developed.
2

3.
Consortium
3

4.
Consortium
Participant No
*
Participant organisation name Country
1 (Lead) National University of Ireland (NUI) Ireland
2 School of Communication and Media, n.o. (SCM) Slovakia
3 DATA d.o.o. (DAT) Slovenia
4 The European Digital SME Alliance (EDA) Belgium
5 Bulgarian Association of Software Companies (BAS) Bulgaria
6 Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI) Slovenia
7 Ontotext Corp (ONT) Bulgaria
8
NGO Agency of European Innovations (AEI)
https://aei.org.ua/
Ukraine
9 Media 21 Foundation (M21) Bulgaria
10 UNIVERSIDADE CATOLICA PORTUGUESA (RCC) Portugal
11 Partnership for Social Development (PSD) Croatia
12 IT Forum (ITF) Denmark
13 The University of Latvia (UL) Latvia
14
Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy
(ELI)
Greece
15 Mediaframe Ltd. (MF) UK

5.
Summary
5
The Report on future policies and regulatory frameworks for social media and content convergence: information disorder,
human rights and regulatory implications (D2.3) gives a comprehensive insight into the functioning of the regulatory and
governance initiatives addressing the human rights concerns related to information disorder in social media. Moreover, it
provides better understanding of the regulatory and governance implications of such efforts, including their potential impact
on policy definition, incentives employed, State’s involvement, building societal trust, etc. In addition to the contents planned
with the project Grant Agreement and due to the situation with the world COVID-19 pandemic, this particular context and its
implications on the topics discussed here is also addressed in the report.
One of the contributions of the project is a tool for assessing existing governance frameworks on the basis of an agreed set of
requirements and with reference to existing standards, which was originally designed for the purpose of the research carried
out in the preparation of this report. The analysis was done in two phases: the first phase represented piloting of the initial
methodology and was implemented in 11 EU member states, encompassing 71 initiatives. The initiatives of the following
countries were included in the first phase: Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Portugal, Slovakia,
Slovenia and the UK. The second phase implemented the final methodology (improved and fine-tuned with the insights from
the first phase) in 13 additional EU countries: Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, Cyprus, Italy, France, Poland,
Germany, Spain, Sweden, Estonia and Netherlands, which amounted to 75 processed initiatives.

6.
Summary
6
The full set of 24 countries thus contains 146 processed initiatives. In that way, not only the wider geographical EU area was
covered and a diverse set of national contexts was accounted for, but also the most critical and active actors in the area of
information disorder governance were included in the datasets (like Germany, France and the United Kingdom). The countries
that are left out from the analysis are: Malta, Switzerland, Finland and Luxembourg.
This study presents and summarizes the most important findings and categorizes them by specific methodological criteria
within the framework developed in WP2 (see D2.1). The structured summary of the key findings is complemented by
recommendations addressing both the analysis criteria and the adequate stakeholders. The entire work is presented through
the lens of the fundamental rights and the regulatory implications of the analyzed issues. Important to note is that they are
based on a dataset collected from the 24 EU Member States in the period of May-September 2018 (I phase) and June-
December 2019 (II phase) and is the exhaustive set of recommendations produced by WP2 within the COMPACT project.

7.
Summary
7
The study analyzed a varied range of information governance initiatives covering different issues related to information
disorder. The results show that most of the initiatives currently active are of a national type, indicating a serious lack of trans-
border collaboration and impact. One important insight is that most of the activities are being performed by non-governmental
or civil society actors, while there is a lack of initiatives involving the industry. In addition, digital rights advocacy and gender
issues are largely underrepresented among the stakeholders, to an extent that there is a complete lack of this aspect within the
initiatives’ activities. Despite the importance of multi-stakeholder approaches, the share of one-stakeholder initiatives is
significantly high and are the most representative of the governance models currently existing in the examined countries. The
lack of employing technology and the minimal technological and policy impact per se reveal an important space for
improvements and innovation. Moreover, the lack of networking platforms for dissemination and collaboration points to a clear
direction to be taken for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the initiatives’ work.
Spread in a multi-stakeholder community, this report has two-fold contribution: on the one hand, it raises awareness on the
shared challenges and opportunities among the industry, users, policymakers and other important stakeholders; on the other
hand, it offers a concrete framework for analyzing the practices on information disorder governance and the extent of
employing the regulatory approaches in that context.

8.
CONTENTS
8
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
Purpose
Scope
Structure
Target audience of the report
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Regulation, governance and regulatory implications
Information disorder
Fundamental human rights
Relevant initiatives
On regulation, governance and regulatory implications
On information disorder
On fundamental human rights
The exacerbating effect of crisis
Regulation, governance and regulatory implications
Information disorder
Fundamental human rights
METHODOLOGY
Conceptual framework
Taxonomy of information disorder governance
EMPIRICAL FRAMEWORK
A generic assessment tool
Data gathering

9.
CONTENTS
9
CONTEXT ASSESSMENT
Empirical analysis
Scope
Stakeholders
Regulatory analysis
CONCEPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION
Empirical analysis
Openness
Objectives
Monitoring and evaluation (M&E)
Conflict resolution mechanisms (CRMs)
Financing scheme
Technology exploitation
Challenges
RESULTS AND EVALUATION
Empirical analysis
Impact
Dedicated methods for raising public awareness
ENFORCEMENT AND COMPLAINT RESOLUTION
Empirical analysis
Sanctions
Complaints resolution
Remedy and redress
STATUTORY SUPPORT
Empirical analysis
Formal recognition
Incentives for participation
Supervision of the implementation
The State as a financer

10.
CONTENTS
10
KEY FINDINGS
Context assessment
Conception and Implementation
Results and evaluation
Enforcement and complaint resolution
Statutory support
RECOMMENDATIONS
Context assessment
Conception and Implementation
Results and evaluation
Enforcement and complaint resolution
Statutory support
Industry stakeholders
Institutional stakeholders
Non-governmental stakeholders
DISCUSSION
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
APPENDIX: LIST OF THE PROCESSED INITIATIVES

11.
FULL DOCUMENT
11
Available on the COMPACT project website.
At the link: http://compact-media.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/D2.3-
Report-on-Future-policies-and-regulatory-frameworks_v1.0-Website.pdf