Internet: moderate disinformation 

Audio 02:33

By: Amaury de Rochegonde Follow

The European Union this week called on the web giants to do more to fight the information that multiplied during the pandemic.

Publicity

Are you more like Facebook or Twitter? The European Commission has made its choice . Through the voice of her vice-president, Vera Jourova, she supported the Bluebird network which calls to check Donald Trump's tweets on postal voting, for example, and reports that his threats to use the National Guard or to shoot in the event of looting is the glorification of violence.

We know the rest: Trump signed a decree to try to prevent his favorite platform from being anything other than a simple hosting service. A decree that opposes any intervention on content, except to be considered as an editor, that is to say with editorial responsibility. Enough to scare Facebook, who fears above all being held responsible for the posts of its 2 billion users. "  I think it is a dangerous line to decide what is the truth and what is not,  " argued founder Mark Zuckerberg, even if it means suffering an internal sling, in the middle of the Black Lives Matter.

Information that is always multiplying

For its part, the European Commission, which is working on a directive on digital services by the end of 2020, intends to tackle disinformation. During the Covid-19 crisis, she saw a multiplication of information about the virus. Up to 3% of messages on Facebook pages of French media, according to Netino. However, she saw that the platforms were able to purge their networks by highlighting information from the WHO, for example.

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Google has blocked 80 million ads related to the coronavirus and Facebook has posted warnings on 50 million content in dispute. Why should it not be the same with state manipulations or questionable political speech? Twitter has just announced that it has closed tens of thousands of accounts related to Russian, Chinese or Turkish propaganda. As for Facebook, it has started to block advertisements from foreign media, notably Russian and Chinese.

Trust the platforms ?

Only, can we trust the platforms to regulate themselves on the political word? And is there not a risk of censorship corresponding to an American tropism? In addition, Facebook employs battalions of moderators that are not enough to curb hate speech and news that marginal groups can encourage by manipulating algorithms.

If France and Germany wish to be more restrictive, as evidenced by the Avia and NetzDG laws , Europe is rather counting on a code of good conduct with partnerships. Not sure that this is enough to prevent further electoral manipulation.

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