Combating Fake News with the Toolbox of the Law and Self-Regulation – the Bulgarian Case

Abstract

The paper discusses the possibilities of countering fake news in Bulgarian media with the instruments of media law, regulation, self-regulation and co-regulation. The study has reached the following important conclusions: 1. The laws are inadequate to the new challenge. There are temptations to fight it through the Criminal Code or a special law that can turn the prosecution service into a repressive media supervisor. 2. The State can contribute to curbing disinformation in the media by highlighting their ownership and funding. 3. The ethical codes oblige journalists to be responsible to society, but self-regulation is de-legitimized by the division in the guild. The solution lies in the development of co-regulation: the state stimulates the media by setting a condition for advertising in them: that they should agree on one code and that their ethics committee should be able to penalize them financially for fake news.