The Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová, met on Friday 27 March with representatives of online platforms and other signatories of the EU Code of Best Practices on Disinformation (see EUROPE 12104/1).
This meeting, like the one held in early March (see EUROPE 12438/18), was intended to take stock of the dissemination of disinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Positive results. The meeting participants confirmed that they observe a constant flow of false information, which they suppress in large quantities.
They also offered assurances that they had put in place measures to promote information from health authorities and to protect users from abusive advertising. For example, by deleting advertisements for protective masks.
The results of these measures are positive, the platforms have noted. All of them have, for example, noted “a spike in traffic to authoritative sources, notably on health issues”, the Commission points out.
“More needs to be done.” However, the institution considers that shortcomings remain in the implementation of these new policies.
In particular, Ms Jourova urged the platforms to share more data with researchers and collaborate with Member State authorities. In particular, she invited them to “share samples of removed content, including with the Commission”, in order to better target their response and better understand the situation.
Finally, participants committed to better combat the dissemination of false information on certain encrypted applications or services such as WhatsApp.
All agreed to be in regular and frequent contact and to discuss these issues again in the coming weeks. “More needs to be done, by both the platforms and authorities alike”, the Commissioner stressed, calling on participants to “step up efforts to fully enforce their new policies and offer more evidence that the measures they have taken are working well”.
New tool. On Monday, the Commission said it had opened a “a dedicated section on fighting disinformation” on its ‘Coronavirus response’ page.
For the time being, the content of this section essentially boils down to the denial of false information about the virus (“the coronavirus crisis does not signal the collapse of the Schengen Area”, “migrants are not bringing COVID-19 to Europe”, etc.) and a reference to advice from health authorities such as the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Finally, at the request of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, Ms Jourova will join the Coronavirus Response Team “to coordinate the work on all aspects related to disinformation and false and harmful content”. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)