EU Commission releases reports on platform actions taken to fight COVID disinformation

The European Commission has published the first baseline reports on the actions taken by signatory platforms of the Code of Practice on Disinformation. Some of the reports highlight the initiatives taken by Google to give prominence to articles published by EU fact-checking organisations, which created more than 155 million impressions on Google Search. LinkedIn sent a curated news summary ‘European Daily Rundown’ to more than 10 million users. Facebook and Instagram directed news from health authorities, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), to more than 2 billion users. Twitter challenged more than 3.4 million suspicious accounts targeting COVID-19 discussions. All signatory platforms have facilitated COVID-related ads from public health authorities and limited third party advertising linked to COVID-19 disinformation to prevent advertisers from capitalising on them. The reports contain information related to Google, Mozilla, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and Microsoft.