back to article European Commission starts formal probe of Meta over election misinformation

The European Commission has launched formal proceedings against Meta, alleging failure to properly monitor distribution by "foreign actors" of political misinformation before June's European elections. Specifically, it is concerned the ad network is "a soft target" for online attackers employed by Russia. Using the recently …

  1. Oh Matron!

    whack-a-mole

    I'm playing whack-a-mole at the moment with nationalistic, AI created images of some turk atop a steed fighting some reptile, or genetically deformed bulldogs. Every time I block a page, another pops up in its place

    Facebook truly is garbage

    Ib only go on because I like watching cats do crazy things....

    1. Andy Non Silver badge

      Re: whack-a-mole

      I gave up on facebook a while back due to all the crap in the feed, especially in the public forums which were full of spam, scams, and general crap. I got fed up of all the friend requests I kept getting from half naked attractive looking women who I'd never heard of (and who likely didn't exist anyway) - probably male romance scammers working as slaves in Cambodian call centres. When the noise to content ratio became unbearable I deleted my account.

  2. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

    So the EU wants the same editorial control that Facebook gives to the American permanent government.

    1. Khaptain Silver badge

      That's the exact reason.

      Misinformation is just a word used to side track from the actual issue.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    EU invokes the Russian bogeyman.

    The European Commission has launched formal proceedings against Meta, alleging failure to properly monitor distribution by "foreign actors" of political misinformation before June's European elections.

    translation: We're going to shutdown legitimate discourse under the pretext of preventing "foreign actors" distributing misinformation.

    1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

      Re: EU invokes the Russian bogeyman.

      Another day, another Rouble, eh, Dmitri?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: EU invokes the Russian bogeyman.

        > Another day, another Rouble, eh, Dmitri?

        Why aren't you off defending Ukraine /s

        1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

          Re: EU invokes the Russian bogeyman.

          Isn't that what your Russian brethren are supposedly doing, protecting it from Nazis or some such bullshit?

          Russian agitprop is just getting boring at this point.

          edit - and to be clear, there is a world of difference between legitimate discourse between genuine people, and targeted political misinformation done via paid-for advertising. An advert is not discourse.

    2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: EU invokes the Russian bogeyman.

      translation: We're going to shutdown legitimate discourse under the pretext of preventing "foreign actors" distributing misinformation.

      But the misinformation business is worth billions. See all the companies from Snopes to the Bbc's 'Verify' business angling to sell TaaS (Truthiness as a Service). But the EU, and assorted other governments have been busily implementing censorship legislation without really stopping to consider how 'misinformation' can really be identified and corrected. Especially when there are so many sources of election interference, and misinformation that should, in theory be trustworthy. There's a good example here-

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68933064

      On 17 April, MPs gave their initial backing to the "foreign agent" bill.

      Under the bill proposed by the ruling Georgian Dream party, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and independent media that receive more than 20% of their funding from foreign donors would have to register as organisations "bearing the interests of a foreign power".

      They would also be monitored by Georgia's justice ministry and could be forced to share sensitive information - or face hefty fines of up to 25,000 Georgian lari ($9,400; £7,500).

      Which is basically the same as the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). But Georgia's also been subject to a lot of election interference over the last few years, funded by the EU and other shady NGOs.

      But I'm also curious about this-

      The EC is also concerned that Meta's platforms lack a third-party real-time election-monitoring tool.

      Err.. surely that tool will be the responsibility of a third-party? As I understand it, that element of the complaint is about FaceMelta maybe not providing API access so that 3rd parties can scrape FaceMelta content. This is perhaps a GoodThing(tm) given it would seem like a tool would need to be able to monitor everything to identify anything that *might* be election related.

  4. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

    In December last year, X-formerly-Twitter became the first online platform to have formal DSA proceedings launched against it. An official said the investigation is ongoing and it has had "quite intense contacts with X."

    I wonder how many poop emojis are required before it is classed as "intense"?

    1. Khaptain Silver badge

      Since the article is about Meta I would suggest a couple of poop emojis for your own irrelevant remark.

      1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge
        FAIL

        Did you suffer from a bit of a reading comprehension fail, because I quoted directly from the article where it mentions "X-formerly-Twitter"?

        The level of intelligence on the Register forums seems to have really dropped in recent years.

        For what it is worth, and for those who apparently need my comment explained, X/Twitter has (in)famously responded to most contact, particularly from journalists, simply with the "poop" emoji, since being taken over by Musk.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Metastasis

    I’m proud to have never joined, used or linked to that vile shite.

    I even refused to touch it at work, and it was effectively part of my job.

    Smug?

    Me?

  6. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
    Joke

    Nothing to see here ..... SNAFU for Revolting Apathetic Native Beings

    The European Commission has launched formal proceedings against Meta, alleging failure to properly monitor distribution by "foreign actors" of political misinformation ..

    :-) Is there anything to be done, ... formal proceeding to be taken and prosecutions to be launched,.... against the political misinformation/broken promises/failed aspirations/tall tales told from home actors in their bids for public election to government office and which are not honoured and filled, or are such tall tale telling lies just par for the course ?

    What does that make politics if not a sick joke?

    1. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

      Re: Nothing to see here ..... SNAFU for Revolting Apathetic Native Beings

      No "misinformation" will be things like pointing out how the EU is behaving in Poland ( eg: illegally withholding funds until their man won the election, arresting the head of the Polish state news channel, etc ).

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