EU is pressuring Meta due to fears of Russian interference in elections | Facebook

[Pelican Press 0]

EU is pressuring Meta due to fears of Russian interference in elections |

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Fears that Vladimir ****** is trying to fill the ********* parliament with more pro-Russia MEPs were behind the EU’s blunt message to the Silicon Valley owner of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

on Tuesday.

It gave Meta just five days to explain how it will root out fake news, fake websites and stop adverts funded by the Kremlin or face severe measures.

Forty days out from the ********* parliamentary elections – and during a year in which countries with more than half the world’s population go to the polls – deep concerns about how

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

is dealing with fake news were behind the warning.

“The integrity of the election is an enforcement priority,” said Thierry Breton, the commissioner for internal market, warning that the ********* Commission would be quick to respond if

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

did not rectify the problems within the week.

“We expect Meta to inform us of the actions they are taking to address these risks in five working days or we will take all necessary measures to defend our democracy,” he said.

Today we open cases against

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

for suspected breach of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

obligations to protect integrity of elections:

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton)

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

The commission confirmed it had launched formal proceedings against Meta as the clock ticks down to elections being held across Europe on 6-9 June.

The commission is extremely concerned that Russia will use

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, which has more than 250 million monthly active users, to try to swing votes in its favour.

As the Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo, said earlier this month, after a formal investigation into alleged payments by the Kremlin to MEPs, the objective of Russia is “very clear”: to help “elect more pro-Russian candidates in the ********* parliament”.

Officials declined to give precise examples but some are blatant, including adverts paid for by foreign agents.

“It is fundamentally wrong they [

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

] are making money on this,” said an official.

They also say the tools to flag ******** or suspicious content are not visible enough.

Links to fake news platforms, known as “doppelganger sites”, are not being removed quickly enough or at all, the EU suggests.

Last week a Czech news agency website was hacked to display fake news including claims that an ************** attempt on the Slovak president had been foiled.

At the same time France’s Europe minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said the country was being “pounded” by Russian *********** with “deliberate manoeuvres to disrupt public debate and interfere in the campaign for the ********* elections”.

skip past newsletter promotion

Sign up to Business Today

Get set for the working day – we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

reCaptcha to protect our website and the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

apply.

after newsletter promotion

Another concern on

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

is Meta’s decision to “suppress” discourse in an effort to de-risk user-generated content on sensitive subjects such as the Middle East.

This is known as “shadow banning”, and the EU wants

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

to be more transparent in how it justifies these decisions.

“Users need to know about it when it happens and they need to be able to appeal it, otherwise this is a discourse risk,” said an official.

It is also concerned that

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

was planning to discontinue a service called CrowdTangle that helped factcheckers, journalists and researchers to monitor disinformation.

Tuesday’s proceedings against

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

are the sixth taken by the ********* Commission since the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) came into force.

But is it enough to stop the *****? Even officials in Nato, on a panel in Brussels in February, said they were treating disinformation as potent a ******* as bullets and missiles.

Officials say it is not that

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

is “not doing anything”, it is just that the measures in place are weak, opaque and not effective enough.

Under sweeping new laws under the DSA, which came into force in August, the EU can fine social media companies up to 6% of their revenue or ban them from the union altogether.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

said: “We have a well-established process for identifying and mitigating risks on our platforms. We look forward to continuing our cooperation with the ********* Commission and providing them with further details of this work.”