The European Commission has said that there is need for Facebook, Alphabet's Google, Twitter and other tech companies with such platforms to be more proactive and try harder to to be more effective to tackle misinformation and fake news.
These companies agreed to a self-regulatory code of practice to combat and reduce disinformation and fake news on their platforms.
There is a growing sense of concern and calls for social media companies to be more proactive in combating the issue of misinformation and fake news following the proliferation of such posts and messages on the platforms during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
With the aim of avoid some heavy-handed regulation from the regulators in the EU, the code was greed to and signed in 2018 by the social media companies, including Mozilla as well as the trade bodies for the advertising industry. The agreement was later also agreed to and signed by Microsoft and the now infamous Chinese short video sharing app TikTok.
According to reports in the media, the commission had conducted an estimation and assessment of the code of self conduct for the social media companies and others at the end of the first year of operations and a number of shortcomings in the code were found to be plaguing the actual aim of the efforts.
"These can be grouped in four broad categories: inconsistent and incomplete application of the code across platforms and member states, lack of uniform definitions, existence of several gaps in the coverage of the code commitments, and limitations intrinsic to the self-regulatory nature of the code," the report form commission said according to media reports.
A call for more action to counter and wade off the new risks was given by the commission vice president for values and transparency, Vera Jourova.
"As we also witness new threats and actors the time is ripe to go further and propose new measures. The platforms need to become more accountable and transparent. They need to open up and provide better access to data, among others," Jourova said.
Currently, Jourova is working on a European Democracy Action Plan which is aimed to create and implement measures that could made democracies more resilient to digital threats.
It has also been reported that by the end of the current year, new rules called the Digital Services Act is set to be proposed by the commission. This new act has been created with the aim of increasing the responsibilities and liability for content on the platforms of the various social media companies.
(Source:www.ndtv.com)
These companies agreed to a self-regulatory code of practice to combat and reduce disinformation and fake news on their platforms.
There is a growing sense of concern and calls for social media companies to be more proactive in combating the issue of misinformation and fake news following the proliferation of such posts and messages on the platforms during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
With the aim of avoid some heavy-handed regulation from the regulators in the EU, the code was greed to and signed in 2018 by the social media companies, including Mozilla as well as the trade bodies for the advertising industry. The agreement was later also agreed to and signed by Microsoft and the now infamous Chinese short video sharing app TikTok.
According to reports in the media, the commission had conducted an estimation and assessment of the code of self conduct for the social media companies and others at the end of the first year of operations and a number of shortcomings in the code were found to be plaguing the actual aim of the efforts.
"These can be grouped in four broad categories: inconsistent and incomplete application of the code across platforms and member states, lack of uniform definitions, existence of several gaps in the coverage of the code commitments, and limitations intrinsic to the self-regulatory nature of the code," the report form commission said according to media reports.
A call for more action to counter and wade off the new risks was given by the commission vice president for values and transparency, Vera Jourova.
"As we also witness new threats and actors the time is ripe to go further and propose new measures. The platforms need to become more accountable and transparent. They need to open up and provide better access to data, among others," Jourova said.
Currently, Jourova is working on a European Democracy Action Plan which is aimed to create and implement measures that could made democracies more resilient to digital threats.
It has also been reported that by the end of the current year, new rules called the Digital Services Act is set to be proposed by the commission. This new act has been created with the aim of increasing the responsibilities and liability for content on the platforms of the various social media companies.
(Source:www.ndtv.com)
