Science Feedback

Science Feedback’s main effort when it came to protecting the integrity of the European Parliamentary elections was our active participation in the Rapid Response System (RRS) set up under this Code of Practice.

The existence of this RRS was a key factor in our decision to step up our monitoring efforts of the election campaign period, as it offered a window of transparency into platforms’ decision-making processes when it came to approaching election-related disinformation.

Making use of the possibility for a fruitful exchange of information with other stakeholders, Science Feedback signalled to platform signatories a number of pieces of content which contained election-related disinformation that was likely to breach platforms’ guidelines or applicable legislation.

The content flagged related to:

• the enforcement of EU sanctions on Russian media entities and personalities, some of whose content was still available to EU audiences on various platforms despite the law prohibiting it,
• medical misinformation, notably misleading information about Covid-19,
• the spreading of conspiracy theories around the attack on Slovak Prime Minister R. Fico,
• foreign interference in EU democratic processes through the use of social media accounts based in Africa posting ads that targeted French audiences and attacked domestic political actors using Russia-aligned messaging,
• the use of fake accounts impersonating politicians or political parties,
• defamation.