European Commission urges tech giants Google and Meta not to promote Russian and Belarusian propaganda
Instead, they are asked to change their algorithms to increase coverage of opposition media
European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová, who is responsible for the policy of preserving European values and transparency, called on Google, Meta and other tech giants to help independent media in Belarus and Russia promote their materials in news aggregators.
Source. The Financial Times writes about it.
According to the FT, Belarusian journalists who were forced to leave the country due to persecution complained to the commission that content critical of the Lukashenko regime did not reach the target audience – often because of search algorithms used by Google, Meta and other companies.
The tech giants, according to the complainants, are improperly taking into account the media censorship rules set by Lukashenko.
According to people familiar with the situation, in December 2023, Yurova expressed her concerns about Belarus to Google's President of Global Affairs Kent Walker.
In May, she also discussed similar issues with Google CEO Sundar Pichai, focusing more on Russia and problems such as the inability of independent media in that country to monetize content posted on the Russian segment of YouTube.
In response to these calls, Google said that it "makes every effort to build products and enforce policies in a way that does not take political views into account." Meta has not yet commented on the situation.
Background. As reported, in mid-December, the European Commission launched an official investigation into the activities of the social network X (Twitter), owned by Elon Musk. The company was accused of violating EU legislation on disinformation, illegal content, and transparency.
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