June 24, 2019

As well as publishing a joint Communication on disinformation with the High Representative last week, the Commission also published the latest monthly reports from Google, Twitter and Facebook under the self-regulatory Code of Practice on Disinformation.

The Commission says that the reports for May 2019 confirm the trend of previous Commission assessments. Since January, all platforms have made progress with regard to the transparency of political advertising and placing ads in libraries giving information on ad spending by political parties across the EU. Facebook has taken steps to ensure the transparency of issue-based advertising, while Google and Twitter need to catch up in this regard.

The Commission says that efforts to ensure the integrity of services helped close down the scope for manipulation of the EU elections, but platforms need to explain better how the taking down of bots and fake accounts has limited the spread of disinformation in the EU. Google, Facebook and Twitter reported improvements to the scrutiny of ad placements to limit malicious click-baiting practices and reduce advertising revenues for those spreading disinformation. However, no sufficient progress was made in developing tools to increase the transparency and trustworthiness of websites hosting ads.

Despite the achievements, the Commission says that more remains to be done: all online platforms need to provide more detailed information in order to identify malicious parties and the Member States targeted. They should also intensify cooperation with fact checkers and empower users to better detect disinformation. Finally, platforms should give the research community meaningful access to data, but in line with personal data protection rules. In this regard, the recent initiative undertaken by Twitter to release relevant datasets for research purposes opens an avenue to enable independent research on disinformation operations by malicious parties. Further, the Commission calls on the platforms to apply their political ad transparency policies to upcoming national elections. To read the Commission’s press release in full and to access the reports, click here.