Safeguarding Freedom – Stabilising Democracy

Stabilising democracy online is one of the most important tasks currently occupying politics, industry and media regulators. The upcoming months will be characterised by the preparations of two groundbreaking initiatives: The Digital Services Act Package and the European Democracy Action Plan. Both proposals are crucial when it comes to protecting our democracy and fostering a free and resilient internet culture.

Discussing how new rules can be reasonably designed and implemented will be the task for all of us – and now is the time to get prepared. We would like to address this issue at our event “Safeguarding freedom – Stabilising democracy” orgranised by the German State Media Authorities in cooperation with the Institute of European Media Law (EMR) and the State Media Authority NRW.

We warmly invite you to join in on our conversation.

Programme

1.30 pm
General Welcome and Opening

• Welcome byHans H. Stein, Director, Representation of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia to the European Union
• Opening by Vice-President Věra Jourová, European Commission

A – Disinformation

1.50 pm
Setting the Scene

• Judith Möller, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam

2 pm
Disinformation as a matter of fact(s)? What it means to…

• a platform: Stephen Turner, Director, Public Policy EU, Twitter Belgium
• a media authority: Michael O’Keeffe, Chief Executive, Broadcasting Authority Ireland
• a fact checker: Stefan Voß, Head of Verification, German Press Agency dpa

2.30 pm 
Ask an academic – Tobias Schmid interviewing

• Wolfgang Schulz, Director, Hans-Bredow-Institute for Media Research

25 Minutes Break

B – Law Enforcement Online / DSA

3.10 pm    
Setting the Scene

• Laura Braam, Team Leader Supervision, Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia

3.20 pm   
Asked an academic – Presentation of an expert opinion

• Mark D. Cole,Director for Academic Affairs, Institute of European Media Law (EMR)

3.35 pm   
What’s next? Concrete measures to strive for.

• Petra Kammerevert, Member of European Parliament
• Renate Nikolay, Head of Cabinet of Vice-President Jourová, European Commission
• Karim Ibourki, Vice Chair of ERGA and President of Conseil Superieur de l’Audiovisuel, Belgium
• Heike Raab (tbc), State Secretary of Rhineland-Palatinate

4.20 pm
Closing remarks

• Tobias Schmid, Chair of ERGA and Commissioner for European Affairs of the German Media Authorities