Lisbon – Speaking to Lusa on Friday, João Tiago Machado, a CNE spokesman, said the first meetings took place this week, and entities will be selected to work on these initiatives, which are expected to invoilve a drill in early 2019.
The aim, he added, is to “take precautionary measures to avoid these issues,” in the election year, at a time when cases of ‘fake news’ are the focus of passionate political debate in the presidential elections in Brazil.
The CNE currently has no record of any complaint filed by parties or candidates related to fake news, he added.
Fake news, or news created purely for political purposes, gained prominence in the US presidential election and is widely believed to have played a role in the election of Donald Trump, the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom and, more recently, in presidential elections in Brazil, in which polls point to a win by right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro.
In Portugal there some cases of fake news have been registered, namely one involving the coordinator of the Left Block, Catarina Martins, which falsely reported she was wearing a watch valued at €20 million.
On Sunday, daily newspaper Diário de Notícias reported the existence of sites based in Canada that report false news about Portuguese politics, linked to a company based in Santo Tirso.
The National Cybersecurity Centre (CNCS) reported in April that in 2019 it would work on a European initiative to “mitigate problems” with possible disruptions to the European Parliamentary elections similar those that affected the US presidential election and the EU referendum in the UK.
“Because of the history of disruption of electoral acts worldwide, the plan is for this not to happen in Europe,” said CNCS president Pedro Veiga, who resigned a few weeks later, and the European Commission “is planning activities to mitigate any problems that may occur.”
