Two senior officials of the European Union asked social media sites Facebook, Google, and Twitter to provide monthly reports on their efforts to curb misinformation on their platform. EU officials maintained on Wednesday as they called out Russia and China for propelling fake news on social media sites, Reuters reports.
EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell and the European Commission’s Vice President made the remark while addressing the prevalence of misleading news on Covid-19. They stressed on the attempts made by foreign actors to influence Europe with fake news.
“It really showed that disinformation does not only harm the health of our democracies, it also harms the health of our citizens. It can negatively impact the economy and undermine the response of the public authorities and therefore weaken the health measures,” Jourova told a news conference as cited in the Reuters report.
She said the next fake news front was vaccination, citing a study showing that Germans’ willingness to be vaccinated had fallen by 20 per cent points in two months.
The Commission said social media platforms should provide monthly reports with details elaborating on their actions to promote verifiable content and combat fake news. Signatories to the code of conduct include Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Mozilla.
Jourova also said Chinese video app TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, will be joining the bloc’s voluntary code of conduct to combat fake news on its platform.
Borrell described the fake news fight as involving warriors wielding keyboards instead of swords.
“Foreign actors and certain third countries, in particular Russia and China, have engaged in targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns in the EU, its neighborhood, and globally,” the Commission said.
The EU executive plans to counter foreign actors by stepping up its communication strategy and diplomacy, and provide more support to free and independent media, fact-checkers, and researchers.
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Social media platforms should provide monthly report on actions to combat fake news: EU
The report recommended that moderators be treated as full-time employees of the social media giants - Getty Images
The report recommended that moderators be treated as full-time employees of the social media giants - Getty Images
Two senior officials of the European Union asked social media sites Facebook, Google, and Twitter to provide monthly reports on their efforts to curb misinformation on their platform. EU officials maintained on Wednesday as they called out Russia and China for propelling fake news on social media sites, Reuters reports.
EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell and the European Commission’s Vice President made the remark while addressing the prevalence of misleading news on Covid-19. They stressed on the attempts made by foreign actors to influence Europe with fake news.
“It really showed that disinformation does not only harm the health of our democracies, it also harms the health of our citizens. It can negatively impact the economy and undermine the response of the public authorities and therefore weaken the health measures,” Jourova told a news conference as cited in the Reuters report.
She said the next fake news front was vaccination, citing a study showing that Germans’ willingness to be vaccinated had fallen by 20 per cent points in two months.
The Commission said social media platforms should provide monthly reports with details elaborating on their actions to promote verifiable content and combat fake news. Signatories to the code of conduct include Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Mozilla.
Jourova also said Chinese video app TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, will be joining the bloc’s voluntary code of conduct to combat fake news on its platform.
Borrell described the fake news fight as involving warriors wielding keyboards instead of swords.
“Foreign actors and certain third countries, in particular Russia and China, have engaged in targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns in the EU, its neighborhood, and globally,” the Commission said.
The EU executive plans to counter foreign actors by stepping up its communication strategy and diplomacy, and provide more support to free and independent media, fact-checkers, and researchers.
A letter from the Editor
Dear Readers,
The coronavirus crisis has changed the world completely in the last few months. All of us have been locked into our homes, economic activity has come to a near standstill. Everyone has been impacted.
Including your favourite business and financial newspaper. Our printing and distribution chains have been severely disrupted across the country, leaving readers without access to newspapers. Newspaper delivery agents have also been unable to service their customers because of multiple restrictions.
In these difficult times, we, at BusinessLine have been working continuously every day so that you are informed about all the developments – whether on the pandemic, on policy responses, or the impact on the world of business and finance. Our team has been working round the clock to keep track of developments so that you – the reader – gets accurate information and actionable insights so that you can protect your jobs, businesses, finances and investments.
We are trying our best to ensure the newspaper reaches your hands every day. We have also ensured that even if your paper is not delivered, you can access BusinessLine in the e-paper format – just as it appears in print. Our website and apps too, are updated every minute, so that you can access the information you want anywhere, anytime.
But all this comes at a heavy cost. As you are aware, the lockdowns have wiped out almost all our entire revenue stream. Sustaining our quality journalism has become extremely challenging. That we have managed so far is thanks to your support. I thank all our subscribers – print and digital – for your support.
I appeal to all or readers to help us navigate these challenging times and help sustain one of the truly independent and credible voices in the world of Indian journalism. Doing so is easy. You can help us enormously simply by subscribing to our digital or e-paper editions. We offer several affordable subscription plans for our website, which includes Portfolio, our investment advisory section that offers rich investment advice from our highly qualified, in-house Research Bureau, the only such team in the Indian newspaper industry.
A little help from you can make a huge difference to the cause of quality journalism!
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