Major online platforms such as TikTok and Twitter failed to effectively combat Russian disinformation in the first year of the war in Ukraine, according to a study published Wednesday by the European Union and cited by AFP.

Russian propaganda is bearing fruit in some parts of the worldPhoto: DreamsTime / Michal Bednarek

The publication of this independent study, carried out on behalf of the EU, comes after stricter rules for very large platforms came into force this month under the new Digital Services Act (DSA).

The report examines the compliance of the actions of six major market players (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter – renamed X -, YouTube, TikTok and Telegram) with these new rules.

The six, with the exception of Telegram, have since August 25 been subject to obligations to monitor content and fight misinformation and hate online.

The commission believes that “standards of risk reduction were not met in the case of disinformation by the Kremlin.”

However, the European Commission noted that “the limited access to data imposes certain reservations on the assessment” that the efforts of the technology companies were “inadequate”.

The EU is concerned about possible disinformation campaigns during next year’s European Parliament elections. According to the study, there is a “high risk” that Russia will try to influence the vote.

“The rules established in the Digital Services Act (DSA) open great prospects for stopping the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns and other states’ attacks on democracy and fundamental rights,” the authors of the study emphasize. “But they need to be applied quickly and effectively.”

Even before the entry into force of the DSA, the assessed companies, with the exception of Telegram, signed a code of best practices against disinformation on the Internet, which contains about forty voluntary commitments aimed, in particular, at improving cooperation with specialists.

According to the report, these commitments “mitigated some of the Kremlin’s malicious actions,” but regretted that the platforms “did not implement these measures at a systemic level.”

Last June, Twitter withdrew from its code of conduct.

The authors warn that in 2023, Russian online disinformation increased after billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter, “in part due to the dismantling of security standards” at the social network.

Elon Musk has started a wave of layoffs since his arrival at the helm of the social network, firing many of the moderators who vetted Twitter’s content.

However, he said last week that Twitter/X was “working hard” to comply with DSA rules (Photo: DreamsTime / Michal Bednarek).

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