Gustavo Cardoso, sociologist and coordinator of MediaLab, an institute for the study of communication sciences integrated into ISCTE (University Institute of Lisbon), and José Moreno, a researcher at the same institution, are collaborating on what Brussels calls the ‘Rapid Response System’ - RSS (in Portuguese, Sistema de Resposta Rápida), which “has already been used several times in many European elections, but this is the first time it is being used in Portugal”.

According to these researchers, this is a change because at the moment the European Commission uses, for all elections, the Code of Conduct against Disinformation, together with the European regulation on digital services (Digital Services Act - DSA).

Under this Code, during elections, signatory platforms are “obliged to establish a system that allows very quickly reporting actions of disinformation that could affect the elections”, explain the researchers.

“At the moment, what is on the table with the Rapid Response System is that entities in Portugal, in this case the Media Lab - the entity that was contacted - can quickly report cases of disinformation that may have implications for the elections. Report them directly to the platforms, so that they can take rapid action. That is exactly the idea,” said José Moreno, in an interview with Lusa.

The Code of Conduct against “is a voluntary agreement that was signed by a number of platforms, of which Twitter was originally a part”. Since millionaire Elon Musk bought this network (2022), the code brings together “everyone except X (formerly Twitter)”.

So now, “the Code of Conduct continues to work, the DSA continues to work, the Rapid Response System continues to work, with most platforms, all the big platforms except X. Microsoft is there, YouTube is there, Meta is there (...) TikTok is there,” he listed.

All major platforms are committed to receiving the report and taking action as quickly as possible, except X.

But, the researcher noted, “X is an important platform from a political perspective, but Facebook and Instagram are more important platforms from a social perspective, [because] they have more social reach than X in most countries.”

The European Commission's choice of MediaLab is related to Iberifier, the Iberian Digital Media Observatory that aims to combat disinformation and of which Lusa is also a member.

“What the Commission is doing is collaborating with the EDMO (European Digital Media Observatory, a European network that studies the dynamics of disinformation) ‘node’ in Romania, with the EDMO ‘node’ in Poland, the EDMO ‘node’ in Portugal and, therefore, that is where Iberifier comes in for the Portuguese case”, according to Gustavo Cardoso.

The rapid response system for legislative elections in Portugal has been active since April 21 and will run until May 25, one week after the vote. The MediaLab team that takes care of this project is made up of Gustavo Cardoso, José Moreno, Inês Narciso and Paulo Couraceiro.