Google acts upon fact-checking commitments:
Google has informed the European Union that it will not involve work from any fact-checking organizations in Search or YouTube until it expands its disinformation laws under the EU plans. Previously, Google voluntarily accepted certain commitments promoted by the European Union in 2022 to improve measures against online disinformation, to now become a law under the Digital Services Act (DSA). As, major US tech companies provide the preferred practices for the elected President Donald Trump, both Tim Cook and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seem to be willing to disrupt the international order and join their forces with Trump against EU regulatory measures. In a letter to Renate Nikolay, director for content and technology at the European Commission, Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, announced his decision that “Google will not comply with this requirement, as it would simply be inappropriate and ineffective for our services.” Walker also noted that Google would withdraw from all fact-checking commitments listed in the Code before the DSA Code of Conduct becomes law.
European Union Code of Practice on Disinformation:
The European Union Code of Practice on Disinformation calls on the signatories to work with fact-checkers from across the EU, providing evidence of their activity in all EU languages and to reduce financial incentives to spread disinformation on their platforms. It will require companies to improve transparency and facilitate the ability of the users to identify, understand, and report disinformation while producing common formats for political advertising and investigating fake accounts, bots, and other harmful platforms. However, these commitments do not have the force of law. Fact-checking is not a current part of Google’s content moderation schemes and they have rejected certain code requirements in the agreement as, YouTube and Search will try to reach agreements with fact-checking organizations in line with this measure but services will not have complete control over this process.
Future of EU and Tech platforms:
A total of 40 online platforms that signed the code included Microsoft, TikTok, Twitch, and Meta as they discontinued their fact-checking program in the US earlier this month. Twitter (now rebranded as X) did sign the code, but it later withdrew from it after Elon Musk purchased the platform. According to the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN), most of the other digital platforms which signed the voluntary disinformation code have not bothered to ensure that their pledges are honoured. The EU lawmakers have been in discussions with the signatories over which of the commitments they would be willing to follow. It is yet to be announced by the Commission as to when the code will be officially law because it was, in November, expected by January 2025.
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