The EU has officially opened a major investigation into Meta for its alleged inability to eliminate electoral disinformation. While the Declaration of the European Commission does not explicitly mention Russia, Meta confirmed to Engadget that the EU investigation points to the country's Doppelganger campaign, an online disinformation operation that pushes pro-Kremlin propaganda.
BloombergThe sources too facebook–instagram” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:said;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:2;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas”>saying The investigation focused on the Russian disinformation operation, describing it as a series of “attempts to replicate the appearance of traditional news sources while producing content favorable to the policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
The investigation comes a day after France saying 27 of the EU's 29 member states had been targeted by pro-Russian online propaganda ahead of June's European parliamentary elections. On Monday, French Foreign Ministry Jean-Noel Barrot urged social platforms to block websites that “participate in a foreign interference operation.”
A Meta spokesperson told Engadget that the company had been at the forefront of exposing Russia's Doppelganger campaign, highlighting it for the first time in 2022. The company said it has since investigated, disrupted and blocked tens of thousands of assets from network. The owner of facebook and instagram says he remains on high alert to monitor the network, while claiming Doppelganger has struggled to successfully build organic audiences for pro-Putin fake news.
The president of the European Commission said that Meta platforms facebook and instagram may have violated the Digital Services Act (DSA), the landmark legislation passed in 2022 that empowers the EU to regulate social platforms. The law allows the EC, if necessary, to impose heavy fines on offending companies: up to six percent of a company's global annual turnover, which could change the way social enterprises operate.
In a statement to Engadget, Meta said: “We have a well-established process to identify and mitigate risks on our platforms. “We look forward to continuing our cooperation with the European Commission and providing them with further details of this work.”
The EC investigation will cover “Meta's policies and practices related to misleading advertising and political content on its services.” It also addresses “the lack of availability of an effective third-party real-time civic discourse and election monitoring tool ahead of the European Parliament elections.”
The latter refers to Meta's disapproval of its CrowdTangle tool, which researchers and fact-checkers used for years to study how content spreads on facebook and instagram. Dozens of groups signed an open letter last month, saying the planned shutdown of Meta during the crucial 2024 global elections represents a “direct threat” to global electoral integrity.
Meta told Engadget that CrowdTangle only provides a fraction of the publicly available data and would not be a complete election monitoring tool. The company says it is building new tools on its platform to provide more comprehensive data to researchers and other external parties. It says it is currently bringing in key third-party fact-checking partners to help identify misinformation.
However, with the European elections in June and the critical US elections in November, Meta better get to work with its new API if it wants the tools to work when it matters most.
The EC gave Meta five working days to respond to its concerns before considering escalating the matter further. “This Commission has created means to protect European citizens from disinformation and selective manipulation by third countries,” wrote EC President von der Leyen. “If we suspect a violation of the rules, we act.”
