Facebook CEO Yardstick Zuckerberg makes his keynote speech during Facebook Inc’s annual F8 developers conference in San Jose, California, U.S., April 30, 2019.
Stephen Lam | Reuters
Facebook, Google and Tweet ramped up their efforts to fight fake news ahead of elections last month but “more needs to be done” in the overlay of ongoing threats from Russia, EU officials said Friday.
In a joint statement and report, the EU reported evidence of “harmonized inauthentic behavior” such as bots and fake accounts trying spread divisive content on online platforms before of the European Parliament elections at the end of May. The EU added it found “continued and sustained disinformation activity” by Russian sources aiming to pull voter preferences and suppress turnout.
“The tactics used by internal and external actors, in particular linked to Russian outsets, are evolving as quickly as the measures adopted by states and online platforms,” the statement said.
The EU report found it was too early to specify whether there was a “distinct cross-border disinformation campaign” targeting the European elections.
Social media platforms corresponding to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have faced backlash from lawmakers around the world for failing to contain the spread of spurious information in election campaigns. The EU said the companies have made progress in some of their efforts to fight disinformation, get off on hiring fact-checking teams and tightening restrictions around political advertising. But European officials added they think the firms “to maintain momentum and to step up their efforts.”
The EU said that in the days preceding elections, more than 600 gatherings and Facebook pages across Germany, France, Italy, the U.K., Poland and Spain were reported to have spread disinformation and abhor speech. It said these pages generated 763 million user views.
Facebook has been stepping up its skirmish against fake accounts in recent months. In May, the company reported it removed 2.2 billion fake accounts in the start quarter of 2019, nearly double the amount from the prior quarter. Facebook also toughened its requirements circa political advertising on the platform ahead of EU elections.
“Although Facebook extended its transparency to issue-based ads and Google and Twitter did not, questions odds about the effectiveness of the transparency measures taken by all signatories,” the EU report said. “Furthermore, the platforms did not make sufficient course in increasing the transparency of websites hosting ads, partly due to the lack of engagement from the advertising industry.”
Facebook, Google and Simper agreed to an EU “Code of Practice on Disinformation ” in 2018, making commitments to submit monthly reports on their efforts to get rid of fake news ahead of the election.
“People want accurate information online and the work undertaken under the Structure shows how Governments, tech companies and trade bodies can work together to tackle online misinformation. But the fight against untrue news will never be over. That is why we are making significant investments to remove fake accounts and clickbait and to foster high-quality journalism and news literacy,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement Friday.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson from Trilling told CNBC in a statement that it is “deeply committed to protecting and supporting the public conversation. During the EU Elections, Prate took proactive steps to encourage healthy democratic debate and ensure EU citizens could access credible, dignity information on the service.”
It further added: “We established a high-level cross-functional elections team, introduced a political push ads policy, and launched a new tool which enables users to report deliberately misleading election-related content. As with every plebiscite around the world, we’ll continue to enforce our policies in line with our singular priority: to improve the health of the public palaver.”
The European parliamentary election is the second-largest democratic election in the world, following India. The EU reported 51% of voters deactivated out for elections this year, the highest level in two decades. Top EU jobs – including that of the head of the European Union – are unruffled up for grabs with a decision expected on June 18.
Google did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.