The European Commission published on Thursday 27 January its reports on digital giants Google, Facebook, Microsoft, TikTok and Twitter, in particular their actions taken last November and December to combat pandemic-related disinformation under the Code of Practice on Disinformation.
Verdict? “There is still room for improvement”, said Vice-President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová. She hopes that by March and the publication of the next reports, the signatories of the code of conduct will address “the existing weaknesses”.
This includes the ambitions of the signatories of the code of conduct to improve data at Member State level and, in particular, to accelerate work on the revision of the Code of Practice and its monitoring system (see EUROPE 12743/24).
However, progress has been made, the European Commission said. TikTok tripled the number of videos with a ‘vaccine’ tag from 90,000 in October to 266,000 in December. Google has updated the searchable information panels on vaccination available in all 27 countries and is beginning to include information on paediatric vaccination
Facebook has removed a network of disinformation and harassment aimed at health professionals, journalists and elected officials, run by a conspiratorial anti-vaccination movement. Microsoft has allowed some advertising for vaccines from public authorities, which generated about 733,000 impressions in the EU between November and December. Twitter reported that it has updated the design of tags for misleading tweets to better identify them.
To consult: https://bit.ly/3G8TrTT (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)