Google has told the EU it will not comply with a forthcoming fact-checking law, according to a copy of a letter obtained by Axios. The company states that it will not be adding fact checks to search results or YouTube videos and will not use fact-checking data when ranking or removing content.
It’s important to note that Google has never really participated in fact-checking as part of its content moderation policies. The company did, however, invest in a European fact-checking database ahead of recent EU elections.
The upcoming fact-checking requirement was originally implemented by the European Commission’s new Code of Practice on Disinformation. It started as a voluntary set of “self-regulatory standards to fight disinformation” but will soon become mandatory.
Google’s global affairs president Kent Walker said the fact-checking integration “simply isn’t appropriate or effective for our services” in a letter to the European Commission. The company also touted its current approach to content moderation, suggesting it did a bang-up job during last year’s “unprecedented cycle of global elections.”
Google also points to a new feature added to YouTube last year that enables certain users to add contextual notes to videos, saying that it “has significant potential.” This program is similar to X’s Community Notes and, likely, whatever fresh hell Meta is cooking up.
Walker went on to say that Google will continue to invest in current content moderation technologies, like Synth ID watermarking and AI disclosures on YouTube. We have no idea what the EU will do in response to Google once digital fact-checking practices become law.
This is happening just after Meta announced it would be ending its fact-checking program in the US, so who knows if Mark Zuckerberg will comply with EU laws. X scaled back its professional fact checkers a while ago. Big tech certainly seems to have a big problem with, um, facts.
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