The spread of disinformation in digital media poses a growing challenge and a serious threat to social peace and democratic processes. Messenger services such as Telegram and WhatsApp, in particular, have developed into platforms on which false information is disseminated on a massive scale. So far, there has been a lack of effective counter-strategies tailored to the complex dynamics of disinformation dissemination on messenger services. In this policy paper, researchers from the fields of computer science, law, psychology and journalism (funded by the german Federal Ministry of Education and Research project DYNAMO) present joint recommendations for action and highlight the need for further research.

Firstly, the paper describes how messenger services are used to create anti-constitutional and state-sceptical counter-publics. In the subsequent analysis of the current legal framework, it is found that existing legal acts, such as the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), do not address the specific challenges of disinformation in messenger services adequately. This underscores the necessity for supplementary measures to effectively curb the spread of disinformation in messenger services in line with fundamental rights. The policy paper makes concrete proposals for supplementing the DSA that are tailored to the specific requirements of messenger services.

The policy paper centers on the interdisciplinary analysis and evaluation of an approach to prevent the spread of disinformation in messenger services, so-called prebunking. Compared to conventional fact checks, prebunking starts before the actual spread of disinformation, either by providing specific information on individual disinformation content (narrow-spectrum) or by training general media literacy (broad-spectrum). Taking into account current research findings in psychological and communication science, prebunking is critically assessed in terms of its technological and legal feasibility. Although prebunking can be regarded as a strategy that is easy to implement overall and broad-based approaches represent a technically easy-to-implement option for regulating messenger services while protecting fundamental rights, psychological studies suggest that content-specific approaches could be more effective. Further research on the empirical effectiveness and practical applicability in line with fundamental rights is therefore required.