Commission shrugs off MEPs calls to address social media disinformation risk ahead of elections

5 months ago 39

While MEPs urgently called for measures to address disinformation risks and foreign influence attempts before the EU elections, according to a letter dated 9 April and seen by Euractiv, the European Commission responded just two days before the vote, stating the decision lies with tech platforms.

The April letter, addressed to Executive Vice-President Margarethe Vestager and Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton, was led by the Netherlands’ Kim van Sparrentak (Greens) and Paul Tang (S&D) and signed by 37 other lawmakers from the EPP, Renew, and S&D.

Recommendation systems suggest content users see by using algorithms that tailor experiences based on user profiles and behaviour. The MEPs expressed concern that these systems induce anger and push users towards extremist content, thus heightening the spread of misinformation and demoting high-quality content.

MEPs suggested turning off personalised recommendation systems by default on very large online platforms, including Meta’s Facebook, and stopping such interaction-based algorithms.

The Commission only replied to the letter on 4 June, almost two months after the letter was sent and just two days before the 6-9 June vote. Verstarger and Breton said the Digital Services Act (DSA) does not provide a “one-size-fits-approach on risk management concerning recommender systems”, leaving it up to platforms to decide appropriate mitigation measures.

The DSA, in force since February, is a horizontal legislation regulating how online actors should deal with illegal and harmful content online.

The executive is “carefully monitoring VLOPSE’s [Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines] DSA compliance” and in March released a set of guidelines for digital services to mitigate election risks, the Commissioners said.

In their letter, the MEPs only mentioned the DSA to say that their suggested measures could be adopted under its auspices “in guidelines, a reviewed code of practice, as crisis measure or if necessary as new initiatives”. They also did not mention the March guidelines.

The measures MEPs proposed could be adopted by the platforms, but any Commission decision to impose such requirements should be adopted “based on facts and high-quality evidence.”

Despite what the Commissioners wrote, platforms may soon face stricter rules to limit disinformation.

Efforts are underway to make the currently voluntary anti-disinformation charter a mandatory Code of Conduct under the DSA, Vice President Věra Jourová recently told Politico.

The Commission also mentioned the proceedings against X and Meta for suspected regulation violations.

[Edited by Alice Taylor]