East Europe governments urge tech firms to fight disinformation

In an open letter signed by their respective prime ministers, the countries said tech platforms, such as Meta’s Facebook, should take concrete steps such as rejecting payments from sanctioned individuals and altering algorithms to promote accuracy over engagement by users.

“Foreign information manipulation and interference, including disinformation is being deployed to destabilise our countries, weaken our democracies, to derail Moldova’s and Ukraine’s accession to the European Union and to weaken our support to Ukraine amid Russia’s war of aggression,” the letter provided to media said.

The letter added big tech companies should be vigilant and resist being used as means of advancing such goals.

“They should take steps to ensure that their platforms are not being used to spread propaganda or disinformation that promotes war, justifies war crimes, crimes against humanity or other forms of violence,” it read.

The letter was signed by the prime ministers of Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and released by Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s office.

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Meta had no immediate comment after the letter was published, while the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) – a US-based non-profit advocacy organisation – was also not available immediately to comment. A Czech government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a question on who received the letter.

The letter said alogrithmic designs must be more transparent, and the public should know about platforms’ policies and their enforcement.

Platforms should dedicate enough staff and funding for content moderation, address the growing threat of deepfakes and artificial intelligence-generated disinformation, it said.

“This is a call to action because foreign information manipulation and interference, including disinformation campaigns pose a threat to democracy, stability, and national security,” it said.

“Big tech companies have the power to be vital allies in our common effort to tackle hostile information attacks against democracies and international rules-based order.”