Google is pushing back against the European Union by refusing to add fact-checking, despite the requirements of a new European Union law. Axios obtained a letter that Google Global Affairs President Ken Walker sent to Renate Nikolay, the deputy director general of content and technology at the EU.
In the letter, Walker said Google would “pull out of all fact-checking commitments in the code” before the rules become law and called it not “appropriate” or “effective” for their services.
Google has never included fact-checking as part of its content moderation practices, while the proposed code would obligate Google to display fact-check results alongside its search results and YouTube videos and incorporate fact-checking into its ranking algorithms.
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According to Axios, Walker defended Google’s existing content moderation strategy in the letter, citing its effectiveness during the “unprecedented cycle of global elections.”
He also mentioned a new feature on YouTube that enables some users to add notes to videos, which is similar to X’s community notes feature and a new program Meta announced last week.
Meta was also one of 40 online platforms that signed the new EU fact-checking code, even though it recently dropped fact-checkers in the U.S.
X, previously known as Twitter, also signed the code but reversed course after Elon Musk bought the platform.
It’s not clear whether all the code’s requirements will be formalized into official rules under Europe’s Digital Services Act, which regulates digital platforms and services.
But EU lawmakers have been discussing with the companies that signed about the commitments they’ll agree to follow.
