After Mark Zuckerberg, head of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, abandoned “fact-checking” in the United States, Google is doing the same, and this time in Europe. This Thursday, January 16, the American media Axios tells us that the Mountain View giant, owner of YouTube, will not opt for fact-checking on the Old Continent, for the moderation of content published on its platforms.
In a letter consulted by our colleagues, and addressed to Renate Nikolay, deputy director general for content and technology at the European Commission, Kent Walker, president of international affairs at Google, explains that fact-checking “ is simply not appropriate or effective for our services », Specifies the American media.
Fact-checking obligations soon to be binding?
The Google representative was speaking in a very specific context. The American company is a signatory of the “ European code of good practice against disinformation “. This charter against fake news in the European Union (EU), created in 2018 and reinforced in 2022, was until then non-binding: digital giants including Google had voluntarily agreed to respect it. There are, for example, obligations in terms of transparency, content moderation, deletion of “propaganda content”… Or safeguards to prevent social networks from becoming more echo chambers of fake news.
But the code will soon be integrated into the DSA, the “Digital Services Act” (European regulation on digital services). However, among the platforms' moderation obligations are precisely provisions relating to fact checking, whether in the form of financial support, or even integration. Commitment 31 of the code consists, for example, of “ consistently integrate, highlight, or use the work of fact-checkers across their platforms’ services, processes, and content ».
Google “will withdraw from all commitments to fact-check the code, before it becomes the DSA code”
So many points which will not be respected by Google, as specified in the letter cited by Axios. Google « will withdraw from all fact-checking commitments to the code, before it becomes the DSA code », writes Kent Walker.
The American company adds that it will not add fact checks to search results and YouTube videos and that it will not use this type of program to classify or remove content. For the Google representative, the group's current approach to content moderation works well – understand, without “fact-checking”.
The new feature added to YouTube, which allows some users to add pop-up notes to videos, “ has significant potential », Continues the president of international affairs at Google in his letter, always cited by our colleagues. Google therefore seems to opt for the approach adopted by X then Meta, which is to let users moderate the content distributed on the platforms via notes.
-Two days earlier, the French media Context we already learned that the American giant had expressed itself to this effect last December, during a meeting of the signatories of the European code of good practices against disinformation.
Google was already not cooperating enough with fact checkers, according to associations
The American giant therefore joins the camp of fans of platform moderation without “fact-checking”. In this category, we now find, in addition to Elon Musk whose network on these platforms.
Also read: Disinformation and lack of moderation – Reporters Without Borders files a complaint against X/Twitter
Especially since the Google's previous commitments had already been deemed insufficient by European fact checkers, recalled Tuesday January 14 Context. On December 18, the European association EFCSN noted, for example, in its rapportwhich « YouTube failed to meet its commitment to cooperate with the fact-checking community “. The list of grievances should now grow longer.
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