Tackling COVID-19 Disinformation — Getting the Facts Right (JOIN(2020) 8)

The COVID-19 Joint Communication represents the EU's first major test of its counter-disinformation architecture under genuine crisis conditions. The infodemic that accompanied the pandemic — the flood of false and misleading health information — required the EU to deploy its counter-disinformation tools at speed and scale, and the response revealed both the strengths and the gaps in the approach built since 2018.

The document is valuable as a case study in crisis information management as much as a policy document. It shows how the EU coordinated across the Commission, EEAS, member states, and platforms during an acute information emergency, and where coordination broke down. The lessons fed directly into the Emergency Management and Information Integrity frameworks developed in subsequent years, and the infodemic experience shaped the EU's approach to the information dimensions of the Russia-Ukraine war.