Activist Avaaz said on Tuesday, Twitter, YouTube, Meta’s Facebook, Microsoft’s LinkedIn, and TikTok are not doing enough in removing fake news from their platforms which rises doubts about their ability to comply with the new EU online content rules.
This week, the tech giants are due to present reports on the measures they have taken to comply with the updated EU code of practice on disinformation which is linked to the online rules for content known as the Digital Services Act that came into force last November.
Avaaz said after analyzing a sample pool of 108 pieces of content that were fact-checked related to a 2022 American anti-vaccine film, it was found that efforts by the social media platforms including Instagram by Meta to remove disinformation were incompetent.
It said the not much were done by the companies to tackle disinformation in languages other than English.
“Despite explicit platform commitments in the code to improve their services in all EU languages, our research found that in certain EU languages – Italian, German, Hungarian, Danish, Spanish, and Estonian – no platform took any action against violating posts,” Avaaz said.
“This study suggests that most of the major platforms are failing to comply with their Code of Practice commitments and might infringe upcoming DSA obligations,” the group said.
Committing to the updated EU code, Meta, Alphabet, Twitter, and Microsoft last year vowed to take a tougher line against disinformation.
Companies face fines up to 6% of their global turnover for DSA violations.
source: reuters.com
