Major tech companies including Facebook and Google agreed Wednesday on a code of conduct to combat online disinformation in the European Union, although critics said the commitments were too weak. Seven months before the European elections, the code published by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, called in particular for the withdrawal of advertising revenues from disseminators of "fake news".
In addition, companies agreed that the source of adverts should be clearly labelled and also agreed to closer scrutiny of ad content disseminated on platforms. They will also track the misuse of automated bots to distribute fake news and expand the possibility for users to lodge complaints about suspect posts.