Big Tech Firms Not Doing Enough to Remove Fake News, Comply With EU Online Content Rules: NGO Avaaz

Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and TikTok didn't do enough to tackle disinformation in languages other than English, an activist NGO claims.

By Reuters | Updated: 7 February 2023 10:26 IST

Big Tech Firms Not Doing Enough to Remove Fake News, Comply With EU Online Content Rules: NGO Avaaz

Companies face fines up to 6 percent of their global turnover for DSA violations.

Highlights

Companies are due to present reports on compliance with EU directives
Only 22 percent of identified misinformation was labelled or removed
NGO suggests BIG Tech platforms may fail EU's DSA obligations

Twitter, Google's YouTube, Meta Platform's Facebook, Microsoft's LinkedIn and TikTok are not doing enough to remove fake news from their platforms, raising doubts about their ability to comply with new EU online content rules, activist NGO Avaaz said on Tuesday.

The companies are due to present reports this week on the measures they have taken to comply with the updated EU code of practice on disinformation which is linked to the online content rules known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) that came into force last November.

Avaaz said it analysed a sample pool of 108 fact-checked pieces of content related to a 2022 American anti-vaccine film and found efforts by the social media platforms including Meta's Instagram to remove disinformation fell short.

Meta Can Be Sued for Inhumane Working Conditions, Rules Kenyan Court

"Overall, just 22 percent of disinformation content we analysed was either labelled or removed by the six major platforms," Avaaz said.

It said the companies did not do enough 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.

Google Announces ChatGPT Rival Bard, Releases AI Service to Early Testers

"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.

Meta, Alphabet, Twitter, and Microsoft last year vowed to take a tougher line against disinformation after committing to the updated EU code.

Companies face fines up to 6 percent of their global turnover for DSA violations.

EU Lawmakers Aim to Finalise Draft AI Rules by March Amid ChatGPT Concerns

The Infinix Zero Ultra has a decent set of specifications on paper, but does the phone justify its high asking price? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.