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Bloomberg
Google, Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc need to continue to boost efforts to combat disinformation on their platforms, the European Union said, as it repeated warnings it could introduce legislation.
The companies’ actions helped limit interference in the European Parliament elections in May and provided greater transparency around political ads, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body said. But large-scale automated propaganda and disinformation persist and more work needs to be done, it added.
“We cannot accept this as a new normal,†EU Commissioners Vera Jourova, Julian King and Mariya Gabriel said in a joint statement.
The commission published the last of its regular reports monitoring companies’ efforts to abide by a voluntary code of conduct to fight disinformation agreed ahead of the European parliamentary elections in May. The EU said progress varied a lot between the signatories.
Facebook, Twitter, Alphabet Inc’s Google and other tech and advertising companies last fall pledged to commit to policies that prevent advertising around disinformation and to prioritise authentic information, among other efforts. In May, Microsoft Corp also signed up to the code.
Tech companies, and Facebook in particular, have come under intense pressure in the US and Europe in recent years over whether Russians had spread disinformation across the platforms to influence the 2016 US presidential election and the UK’s Brexit vote.
The EU said there is “an urgent need†for online platforms to establish meaningful cooperation with a wider range of independent researchers and grant them access
to data.