Facebook and Twitter are expected to provide monthly reports on their fight against disinformation, MEPs said.
Brussels:
Facebook, Google and Twitter are expected to provide monthly reports on the fight against disinformation, senior EU officials said Wednesday when they called on Russia and China for their role in spreading false news.
Comments by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Vice-President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova highlight bloc concerns over prevalence of misleading news on COVID-19 and attempts by foreign actors to influence Europe.
“This has really shown that disinformation does not only harm the health of our democracies, it also harms the health of our fellow citizens. It can have a negative impact on the economy and undermine the response of governments and therefore weaken sanitary measures, “Jourova said at a press conference.
She said the next front of fake news was vaccination, citing a study showing that the Germans’ willingness to get vaccinated had dropped by 20 percentage points in two months.
The Commission said online platforms should provide monthly reports with details of their actions to promote authoritative content and to limit misinformation about coronaviruses and related advertising.
Jourova also said that the Chinese video application TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, will join the bloc’s voluntary code of conduct to combat false information on its platform. The signatories to the code of conduct are Google, Facebook, Twitter and Mozilla.
Borrell described the fake news fight as involving warriors wielding keyboards rather than swords.
“Foreign actors and certain third countries, in particular Russia and China, have engaged in targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns in the EU, its neighbors and worldwide,” said the Commission.
The EU executive plans to counter foreign actors by stepping up its communication strategy and diplomacy, and to provide more support for free and independent media, fact-finders and researchers.
