On June 3, 2025, the Partnership for Information and Democracy held the second meeting of its workstream on “Strengthening Information Integrity on Private Messaging Platforms”, led by Ukraine and Luxembourg. The discussion highlighted the complex challenge governments face in regulating these platforms.
As private messaging platforms are increasingly used to spread dis- and misinformation, foreign interference and propaganda, shaping public policy responses to tackle this issue remains a critical challenge. After a first meeting dedicated to identifying the main challenges raised by private messaging platforms held in March, the Workstream on Strengthening Information Integrity on Private Messaging Systems gathered online on June 3rd.
The discussion notably focused on the results of a questionnaire prepared by Ukraine and circulated amongst the signatory States of the Partnership for Information and Democracy. Structured on issues related to legal and regulatory measures, cooperation with platforms and technical measures as well as media literacy and public awareness, this questionnaire has allowed to gather a crucial sample of countries’ responses to disinformation on private messaging systems.
A blind spot of current regulatory efforts
Answers to the questionnaire received by a dozen of signatory countries, including some EU countries but also other States with regulation or literacy approaches, clearly highlight the lack of reference to private messaging systems in current regulatory frameworks.
The difficulties to establish a strong and sustainable regulatory framework is often explained by the ambiguity of the services themselves, which include encrypted private conversations as well as public facing channels and groups.
While much progress has been made on recognizing disinformation as a societal risk, current regulatory frameworks remain rather unclear on what is an online platform and what constitutes a “private messaging service”. For Marina Olaizola Rosenblat , that ambiguity in the public/private distinction creates challenges in applying legal frameworks, encouraging inconsistent enforcement and exploitation of regulatory loopholes.
Towards a features based framework
To address these challenges, a growing consensus arised from the participants in the meeting on the idea that regulation must be tailored to specific features and associated risks. This solution would also prevent any attempt to weaken the right to end-to-end encryption.
Differences between platforms and the specific features they offer must be taken into account. To help regulators determine whether a communication channel is public or private, several key assessment questions were proposed:
- Is the group discoverable? How many people could join the group?
- Are there any access restrictions, such as admin approval required to join?
- What is the group size?
- Are messages able to be broadcasted or shareable? Or are there features to limit virality?
- Who can report content – users or third parties?
The UK’s Online Safety Act, for example, differentiates between public and private venues based on platform functionalities rather than adopting a platform-wide categorization. Group size, discoverability, forwarding capabilities, and the mechanisms available for reporting content are among the key elements being scrutinized.
This model allows regulators to preserve privacy protections for true one-to-one messaging while still addressing the mechanisms by which disinformation spreads on a large scale. For example, a small invite-only channel with limited forwarding would be considered private, while a large encrypted group with open access would more likely be considered public.
This second meeting made clear that private messaging platforms can no longer be treated as regulatory blind spots. The workstream will pursue its mandate by gathering further input and proposing pragmatic solutions adapted to the realities of the digital ecosystem. All interested parties, government representatives, civil society experts or researchers, are welcomed to join the workstream and take part in upcoming sessions.
