The EU is calling on big tech companies to stand by their commitments to flush out disinformation on their platforms considering the upcoming elections across Europe and Russia’s continued assault on Ukraine.

In a speech, European Commission Vice President Ver Jourova showed the severity with which the EU is currently taking big tech’s involvement in disinformation, online safety, and fake news.

She issued an update on the anti-disinformation Code, which currently has 44 signatories from major companies including Facebook, Google, TikTok, and LinkedIn, in a commitment against disinformation on their platforms.

“One of my main messages to the signatories is to be aware of the context. Russian war against Ukraine, and the upcoming EU elections next year, are particularly relevant, because the risk of disinformation is particularly serious,” her statement read, highlighting the importance social media and digital spaces hold in supporting fair elections.

The code of practice, which focuses on squashing disinformation online, is somewhat an extension of the Digital Services Act (DSA) which came into law this year. Big tech companies voluntarily signed onto the Code in order to comply with the major tech legislation.

The Code of Practice was issued as part of a stress test so companies could test their ability to comply with the new regulations, which all large companies must comply with, even if they are no longer signatories.

This could spell disastrous for X, formally known as Twitter which left the code of practice earlier in the year, but is still obligated to follow the DSA or be banned from the EU.

The EU Commission is set to release the first compliance report after the DSA’s official approval, and the findings show that X is the worst offender.

X had the most disinformation on its platform, according the report, with Facebook in second place despite the company signing onto the code of practice.

Meta has upped its fact-checking game, however, in a bid to stop disinformation affecting upcoming elections in Europe, and now covers 22 languages in the EU.

TikTok was also a signatory, and informed the EU it has removed nearly 6m fake accounts and over four hundred unverified advertisements.

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As part of it’s efforts, Google removed 300 sites it says were liked to propaganda sites, and YouTube removed over 400 channels that were linked to Russian-state sponsored affiliates.

However, the VC also noted room for continued improvement, noting where she would like tech companies to focus their work.

Consistent moderation would be key, investing in fact-checking in all Member States languages will be vital in protecting free and fair elections.

Further, companies must provide researchers appropriate access to their data to conduct their work to ensure a reasonable degree of transparency.

In Other EU Tech News… 

Thierry Breton, EU Commissioner, internal market, has called on Apple to open up their software and hardware ecosystem to competitors under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

The new act places certain expectations on ‘gatekeepers’ – large dominant tech companies – to not abuse their market dominance to squash new entrants and other competitors. The law aims to allow for further innovation by ensuring inter-operability is ensured across platforms.

For Apple, this would mean allowing their users to select for different apps and operating systems on their devices outside of the Apple ecosystem, including using alternative app stores and digital wallets.