When European Union Vice-President Věra Jourová met with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan in California last week, they began talking about the long-held conspiracy theory that the moon landings were fraudulent. YouTube has faced calls from some users and advocacy groups to remove videos questioning the historic missions. Like other science-defying videos, they are launched based on recommendations and include a Wikipedia link that directs viewers to the context of the debunking.
But when Mohan talked about these measures, Jourová made it clear: fighting lunar madmen and flat earthers should not be a priority. “If people want to believe it, let them do it,” she said. As the official responsible for protecting democratic values in Europe, she believes it is more critical to ensure that YouTube and other immense platforms do not spare the euros that could be invested in fact-checking or product changes to reduce false or misleading content that threatens EU. security.
“We focus on narratives that can mislead voters, which can do great harm to society,” Jourová tells WIRED in an interview. She said the EU could not be expected to demand action against them if conspiracy theories could not lead to death, violence or pogroms. The content is the same as last time fake news report announcing that Poland is mobilizing its troops in the middle of elections? This better not be true on the Internet.
According to Jourova, her conversation with Mohan and similar discussions she had with CEOs last week ICT Tok, XAND Meta show how the EU is helping businesses understand what needs to be done to counter disinformation, as now required by the EU’s tough recent Digital Services Act. Its requirements stipulate that from this year the largest online platforms, including YouTube, will have to take steps to fight disinformation, or face financial penalties of up to 6 percent of their global sales.
Civil liberties activists fear that the DSA will ultimately enable censorship by the bloc’s more authoritarian regimes. Robust showings by far-right candidates in the EU parliamentary elections later this week could also lead to uneven enforcement.
YouTube spokeswoman Nicole Bell says the company is working with Jourova to prevent egregious real-world harm, as well as remove content that misleads voters about how to vote or encourages interference in democratic processes. “Our teams will continue to work around the clock,” Bell says of monitoring problematic videos about this week’s European Parliament elections.
Jourová, who expects her five-year term to end later this year in part because her Czech political party ANO no longer has the power in the country to renominate her, says the DSA is not intended to enable anything more than appropriate moderation of the most egregious content. He doesn’t expect Mohan or any other technology executive to go an inch beyond what the law requires. “Abusing and exceeding the limits based on EU regulations would be a big failure and a big threat,” he says.
On the other hand, he admits that unless companies are seen to be making efforts to curb disinformation, some influential politicians have threatened to introduce tougher regulations that could border on outright censorship. “I hate this idea,” he says. “We don’t want that to happen.”
But if DSA offers more guidance than glowing lines, how do platforms know when to act? Jourová’s “democracy tour” of Silicon Valley, as she calls it, aims to facilitate dialogue about politics. It also expects social media researchers, experts and the press to contribute to resolving the unclear lines between free speech and destructive disinformation. She jokes that she does not want to be perceived as “Europe’s minister of truth”, although this title may be tempting. Leaving it to politicians alone to determine what is acceptable on the Internet “would open the door to hell,” he says.