Brussels waded into the dispute between President Donald Trump and Twitter on Wednesday, backing the US social media giant’s decision to fact-check two tweets by the US leader.
The European Commission’s top official on countering disinformation praised Twitter for tagging two claims made by Trump last month about postal ballots in US elections.
The intervention came as the EU urged web giants including Twitter, Facebook and Google to do more to tackle the “massive wave” of harmful online disinformation triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.
Brussels officials said that while social media platforms had taken steps to counter the deluge of misleading healthcare information, hoaxes and conspiracy theories, their efforts were “not good enough”.
Trump has come under fire for suggesting COVID-19 patients could be treated by ingesting disinfectant, but it was his tweets claiming mail-in voting would lead to a “rigged election” that sparked the clash with Twitter.
The site added links reading “get the facts” to the two Trump tweets, infuriating the social-media savvy president, who has more than 80 million followers.
Vera Jourova, the European Commission vice-president for values and transparency, who leads the bloc’s anti-disinformation fight, said this was the right approach.
“I support the Twitter reaction to tweets of President Trump,” she said. “They did not delete it. We all can see it. They provided fact-checked information and promoted facts.”
Jourova was speaking at the launch of a major policy document outlining the EU’s approach to tackling disinformation about the pandemic.
In the report, the bloc also accused China and Russia of mounting targeted propaganda campaigns to undermine democracy and burnish their own images.
“The pandemic showed that disinformation does not only harm the health of our democracies, it also harms the health of our citizens,” said Jourova.
Source: Guardian Newspaper
