De Facto now liaises with the European Commission
A few months in our work, we took some time to write about our concerns and suggestions on tackling disinformation and its impact on education and training systems in letters to Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, and Tibor Navracsics, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport.
We are thankful for the reply from a cabinet member of Commissioner Navracsics, and are particularly appreciative of the personal reply from Commissioner Gabriel, who not only expressed the EC’s shared view on the issue, but also took the lead and suggested that we follow-up with a meeting at the DG CONNECT (Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology) to “introduce De Facto in greater detail and dicuss possible synergies with the Commission’s media literacy and other initiatives against desinformation”. Commissioner Gabriel kindly informs that her services are now at our disposal to arrange for such a meeting.
We will gladly take this meeting opportunity and will be discussing with our partners the best time to arrange this meeting in Brussels.
Following-up our informative email to Commissioner Navracsics and the initial formal reply from his cabinet, we received a further communication from Mr José-Lorenzo Vallés, Head of Unit, Policy Strategy and Evaluation, Strategy and Investments, DG EDU (Directorate-General for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport), which kindly notes that De Facto “addresses in particular one of the priorities of the Council Recommendation on Promoting common values, inclusive education, and the European dimension of teaching adopted on 22 May 2018, namely “enhancing critical thinking and media literacy, particularly in the use of the internet and social media, so as to raise awareness of risks related to the reliability of information sources and to help exercise sound judgment”.
We are pleased that the DG EDU has gone at further length in their letter to encourage our initiative and are looking forward to the results we have planned – with an even clearer vision of the European dimension of our work.
