Dutch cabinet has decided to start an online awareness Campaign in February next year to counter the impact of disinformation as much as possible. February was deliberately chosen because in the following months two elections will follow.

Minister Kajsa Ollongren of the Interior said in a letter to Parliament that the campaign is intended to make people more aware of the phenomenon of misinformation and the responsibility of recognizing it. This campaign comes after a call from the Lower House, in the form of a motion from D66 member of parliament Verhoeven, to do such a campaign.

The campaign will last for four months and will end on 23 May. Then there are elections for the European Parliament. Before that, on March 20, are the Provincial Council elections. Ollongren thinks it is necessary to keep the campaign around the time of elections, because in recent years elections in other countries have shown that there is more ‘disinformation and trolling in the public online debate around French, German and Swedish elections and the Brexit- referendum ‘. She states that the threat of disinformation from other countries is real and that Fake News is becoming more and more sophisticated.

The letter also states that the Rathenau Institute has found that online disinformation in the Netherlands has not had a major negative impact on society for the time being. According to this institute, this is because the Netherlands has a ‘strong media system, has a pluriform news consumption and there is a high level of trust in the media’. According to the Commissariaat voor de Media, these factors make up the observation that the risks of ‘filter bubbles’, in which people unilaterally inform themselves about their environment, is small. For the time being, the minister also adheres to the principle of trust in the own responsibility of tech companies in the form of self-regulation.