A top European Union official said on Tuesday (September 26) that social network X (X), formerly known as Twitter, is the biggest source of fake news and called on owner Elon Musk to respect the bloc's laws aimed at combating against misinformation.
Ahead of the upcoming elections, Google, TikTok, Microsoft and Meta also have more work to do to combat disinformation, much of which comes from Russia, which is using social media to wage a "war of ideas" against democracy, European Commission Vice President Vera Jurova said.
Russia's disinformation operation is "a multi-million euro weapon of mass manipulation aimed at Russians, Europeans and the rest of the world," she said at a press conference in Brussels.
With elections scheduled in Slovakia and Poland in the coming weeks, and for the European Parliament next year, major online platforms need to address the risk of interference, Jurova pointed out.
The Kremlin and other malicious actors "will try to use the design of the platforms for manipulation," the vice president of the European Commission said.
She provided an update on the 27-member EU's Disinformation Code of Practice from 2022. Google, TikTok, Microsoft and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, signed up to the voluntary code last year, but Twitter backed out after Musk bought the platform.
"X is the platform with the highest ratio of fake or disinformation posts," Jurova said.
To an email sent to the company's press service for comment, an automatically generated response arrived: "We are busy now, please call back later."
The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, published a study of six online platforms in Poland, Slovakia and Spain which found that Twitter has the most disinformation and the highest ratio of disinformation actors.
Jourova warned Musk that "he's not off the hook" just because his company isn't part of the code. The code is embedded in a strict new set of mandatory European regulations known as the Digital Services Act, which subjects the biggest online platforms, including Ix, to the highest level of scrutiny.
"Now there are obligations given by a strict law, so my message to Twitter is: 'You have to comply with a strict law, and we will monitor what you do,'" Jurova said.
Under the code, online platforms agree to commit to measures aimed at reducing disinformation and must submit regular reports.
After filing "baseline" reports, their first six-month reviews were published on Tuesday, showing how they are delivering on those promises.
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