Ministers from all 27 member-states have called for a crackdown on anonymous online profiles.
In a joint statement published on Friday, April 12, politicians described the rapid increase of “fake profiles” on social media as being a “major threat to online democracy”.
The so-called “Louvain-la-Neuve Declaration” went on to request that the European Commission draw up voluntary measures to tackle this alleged threat.
“The Louvain-la-Neuve Declaration entrusts the European Commission with creating optional tools… to provide information about the veracity of the profiles with which we interact in the digital world,” it reads.
Mathieu Michel, Belgium’s Secretary of State for Digitisation, claimed that there was now a need to deal with such profiles as they were the core of a number of major online threats.
“False profiles are at the root of digital threats such as phishing, spreading false information and cyber-stalking,” he claimed.
“The Louvain-la-Neuve Declaration paves the way for more online democracy and greater protection for the most vulnerable, such as children. It gives Internet users and platforms the choice of differentiating between a fake profile and a verified, verifiable or anonymous one.”
Such sentiments were echoed by the European Commission’s self-styled “digital enforcer”, Thierry Breton, praising Friday’s meeting as representing a step forward on the “protection of vulnerable users online”.
“This fruitful discussion will help advance our mission to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and economic security in the digital and telecommunications sectors,” he said.
