Have your say

• What can be done to reduce the misinformation around the reporting, analysis and commentary on topical events and issues?

• How can we ensure a sustainable and diverse range of news sources that are transparent, accurate and accountable?

• What can be done around personalisation to ensure that ‘good’ content reaches the widest public audience?

• How should journalism change to engage better with diverse publics, to reach underserved audiences and to report on overlooked areas?

• How can journalism improve and demonstrate its ethical and social public value?

• What strategies should the news media adopt to cope with the challenges and opportunities of new technologies and new audience and market conditions?

• What is the role of government, civil society as well as corporations and political organisations in sustaining journalism credibility?

• What relationship should journalists have with the platforms?

• How can news organisations improve media literacy among members of the public?

• What can be done to reduce misinformation and malicious interference around elections?

What would a healthy platform ecosystem look like? Would it:

• Foster creative content production?
• Provide a space for dissenting/diverse opinions?
• Promote social cohesion and democratic debate?
• Be of public value?
• Offer protection from illegal and/or harmful content?
• What is the ‘crisis’? What is the likely outcome of no intervention in the UK market? Will the market self-correct in time? If - thanks to advertiser pressures – it does, will this have a chilling effect on freedom of speech?
• What behaviours and practices should be part of platform companies’ duties and responsibilities?
• What new measures would create incentives for platform owners to behave as ‘responsible guardians’? For example:
  • Better enforcement of existing legislation or standards (verification fact checking and trust marks)?
  • New legislation/regulatory powers - through government regulation, co-regulation or self-regulation (codes of conduct)
  • A levy on (large) platform owners to support public service media, a sustainable press and/or digital/media literacy training?
  • An independent body to monitor platform behaviour/practice with changes to liability?
  • What lessons can we draw from legislative measures in Germany and elsewhere?
  • Is it realistic to require platforms to be transparent about their algorithms and content moderation?

The Commission will consider what a ‘good’ political campaign would look like in the platform era, and how platforms, the media, government and civil society might work together to achieve it. It will look at how civil society actors like charities deploy online campaigning, how journalists can engage voters more profoundly and what can be done to give them a more informed and meaningful voice in the election process.

• What are the values that make for ‘good’ online communication at an election and how can they be embedded in electoral institutions?

• What can be done to improve the transparency of elections and other political campaigns? How useful is transparency as a regulatory device?

• Information is supposed to improve politics but what can be done to improve both?

• What do people need to know in order to effectively fulfil their role as citizens? What do they know?

• How should we address perceived problems such as filter bubbles, lack of deliberation, the challenge of increasing diversity of sources and perspectives, the problems for mainstream political journalism, the rise of polarisation?

• How should political parties, government, the news media and platforms change to address the perceived decline in trust?

• What is the information crisis doing to the quality of debate and how can it be improved?

• Can we shift the focus from what should be restricted to capacity-building? How do we reclaim the original idea that communication technology can be empowering for citizens?

• To what extent are contemporary challenges to democracy routed in the political system or in the media? How do the two spheres interact with each other?

• What media literacy skills do citizens need, given that a functioning democracy requires a well-informed public? What kinds of policy regarding media literacy would enable 'due trust' in democratic processes, and give people the tools to assess competing claims?
• Is media literacy for children and young people effective and fit for purpose? What about older adults, who sometimes lack digital skills and have generally not received formal training? Is the nature of media literacy itself changing?
• What responsibilities for improving information quality and the conditions of media literacy do platforms, journalists, corporations, public relations, advertising, civil society and government have?
• What specifically can be done about the risk that algorithmic selection polarises opinions and beliefs?
• What expectations are citizens entitled to have about how information and news is presented to them online?