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January 29, 2019 Google, Facebook, Twitter and Mozilla must do more to fight online disinformation, despite "some progress" in the implementation of the Code of Conduct against fake news signed in October 2018 in view of the elections for the renewal of the European Parliament .

This is the position of the European Commission, after the four giants and the association representing the advertising sector presented the first report on the implementation of the Code of Conduct against disinformation.

"There has been some progress, notably in removing fake accounts and limiting the visibility of sites that promote disinformation," the Commission said.

"However, more action is needed to ensure full transparency of political advertising from the start of the European election campaign in all Member States, to allow appropriate access to platform data for research objectives and to ensure appropriate coordination between platforms and individual member states ", explained the EU executive.

"We need to go further and faster before May. We don't want to wake up the day after the election and realize we should have done more," said Commissioner responsible for security union Julian King.




Specifically, the report published by the Commission underlines that Facebook has taken or is taking measures to follow up on all the commitments set out in the Code of Conduct, but now it must provide greater clarity on how the social network will allow its users to use anti -fake news and increase cooperation with fact-checkers.

Google - says the report - has taken steps to improve the evaluation of advertising inserts and the transparency of political advertising, but the tools available to users against fake news and other means of disinformation are available only in a limited number of Member States.

Twitter - the report continues - has prioritized action against "malicious" actors by closing fake or suspicious accounts and automated systems and bots, but it needs to provide more information on how it intends to move against us and continues to spread disinformation by promoting its tweets.

Finally, according to the report, Mozilla is about to launch an updated version of its site that blocks tracking of sites visited by default, but needs to be more concrete on how this tool can avoid disinformation campaigns.