RED LANTERNS TikTok promises to fight disinformation in the EU

The Chinese company’s commitment conforms to a code of conduct adopted by the European Union. In particular, the false information about the conflict in Ukraine is in the spotlight, which is often amplified by the networks of the Beijing government. Among the big ones, Twitter is the worst social network in the fight against disinformation in Europe.

Brussels () – The well-known Chinese social network TikTok today promised to fight disinformation on its platform, in accordance with a code of conduct adopted by the European Union in recent months.

The European authorities pay great attention to the fight against false news, especially those that come from media and entities controlled by authoritarian states. In a report published this month by the EU section responsible for fighting disinformation, China and Russia are singled out as the two main “foreign sources of information manipulation and interference.” Among other things, Chinese government-linked media and social accounts “amplified certain pro-Kremlin conspiracy theories, for example, about alleged US bio-labs in Ukraine.”

In the presentation of an internal report on the progress regarding the European regulation on the dissemination of false information, TikTok admitted that there is still a lot of work to be done. The Chinese company (owned by the giant ByteDance) announced that in the coming months it will strengthen its identification tools for media under state control, as well as actions against disinformation related to the conflict in Ukraine.

It will also expand its European news monitoring program (fact checking or fact-checking) to include more languages ​​and increase the volume of checks. Controls also include advertisements. The social network stated that it had removed 191 ads made by political actors in the last six months.

Among the web communication giants, TikTok is not the worst positioned in the fight against misinformation. According to the European Commission, at the head of this special ranking is Twitter: apart from the Chinese social network, Google, Meta (Facebook) and Microsoft performed better than the platform recently acquired by billionaire Elon Musk.

However, as reported Reuters, TikTok now expects more EU controls over its online content. The measure is mandatory under recent EU legislation, according to which verifications are triggered when a web company exceeds 45 million active users.

In 2020, TikTok claimed to have more than 100 million users in Europe. In the EU, violations of web content regulations can lead to fines of up to 6% of the global turnover of the examined entity.

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