Seznam

Report March 2025

Submitted

Seznam.cz is a leading Czech internet company that provides various online services, such as search, news, discussions, email, maps, and e-commerce.

Integrity of Services

Commitment 14

In order to limit impermissible manipulative behaviours and practices across their services, Relevant Signatories commit to put in place or further bolster policies to address both misinformation and disinformation across their services, and to agree on a cross-service understanding of manipulative behaviours, actors and practices not permitted on their services. Such behaviours and practices include: The creation and use of fake accounts, account takeovers and bot-driven amplification, Hack-and-leak operations, Impersonation, Malicious deep fakes, The purchase of fake engagements, Non-transparent paid messages or promotion by influencers, The creation and use of accounts that participate in coordinated inauthentic behaviour, User conduct aimed at artificially amplifying the reach or perceived public support for disinformation.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 14.1 Measure 14.2

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Measure 14.1

Relevant Signatories will adopt, reinforce and implement clear policies regarding impermissible manipulative behaviours and practices on their services, based on the latest evidence on the conducts and tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) employed by malicious actors, such as the AMITT Disinformation Tactics, Techniques and Procedures Framework.

QRE 14.1.1

Relevant Signatories will list relevant policies and clarify how they relate to the threats mentioned above as well as to other Disinformation threats.

Seznam Search 
·       Our search systems prioritize high-quality and authentic information sources to provide users with the most relevant content and best user experience. At the same time, we reduce the reach of low-quality content, often spread through deceptive or manipulative behavior listed in Commitment 14, by spam detection tools. 
·       While these measures address TTPS relevant for search engines (e.g. inauthentic domains or Inauthentic coordination of content creation or amplification) at a high volume, we also warn users against known misinformation websites. Warnings flagging untrustworthy content appear to users in the organic search results under the link to misinformation sites, and we do not display images and videos from these domains.

 
Seznam Newsfeed has policies for what can appear in the service to promote quality journalism and trustworthy news. 
·       Independent Media Rating published by the Foundation for Independent Journalism (NFNZ) is mandatory for all news websites displayed in Seznam Newsfeed. 
·       Websites that disseminate or contribute to the dissemination of misinformation or conspiracy theories are excluded from the feed. 
·       We also have a policy to limit clickbait headlines and other deceptive or manipulative editorial practices.
·        Furthermore, we provide Guidelines for our partners and require compliance with standards for information sourcing on all websites displayed in Seznam Newsfeed. 
·       To avoid deceptive and manipulative media, we insist that the reader must be able to trace the source of the information and make judgment on its credibility. There are even stricter rules for news and articles on health and scientific topics.


Seznam Discussions 
·       Our policies require users to appear under their real identity to address inauthentic and deceptive behaviors listed in Commitment 14. Fake accounts are not allowed at the service, and we have several levels of verification that apply proportionally to the behavior and reach of a particular account. We further limit deceptive practices by prohibiting content that impersonates any physical person or organization and engaging in inauthentic or coordinated behavior to deceive or mislead.
·       Any content in breach of both private and public law is forbidden on the service. We pay special attention to content that incites hatred towards individuals or groups of the population based on racial or religious affiliation and nationality. On top of that, vulgar or obscene language or vulgarity by description, slanders, and threats of violence are prohibited as well.
·       We also limit the spread of spam and other TTPs listed in Commitment 14. by targeting content with specific dubious features (e.g. all caps, special characters, etc.), re-posted content, and content that spreads misinformation or contains links to such websites. 
·       On top of that, we fact-check manipulative comments, label them and add context boxes instead of just simply deleting the post or banning the account.
·       Finally, we aim to prevent people from abusing our services for commercial or any other gain, so we remove content that shares personally identifiable information or other private information obtained from illegal sources or published without consent.
·       We do this by a combination of AI tools and human editors.


Seznam Search 
·       We use both machine learning and humans to prioritize high-quality and authentic content and reduce the reach of low-quality content, often spread through deceptive or manipulative behavior listed in Commitment 14. More information on how Seznam search works can be found here. 
·       Seznam Search also uses various external sources (EU Guidelines, National Center for Cybernetic Operations, the Foundation for Independent Journalism, the Atlas of Conspiracies project, and the Slovak initiative Konspiratori.sk) to identify and flag disinformation websites and display appropriate warnings.


Seznam Newsfeed uses a combination of humans and AI to evaluate quality of content.
·       Every day, around 3,000 media articles are submitted to the Newsfeed service by partner websites. About 2,000 of these texts are published after being automatically checked and pre-categorized using tools such as clickbait headline detection or topic specificity classifier. Additionally, almost half of the submitted texts undergo a manual review process by trained editors.
·       We provide our editors with detailed internal guidelines and use independent MediaRating published by the Endowment Fund for Independent Journalism (NFNZ) to evaluate submitted articles. Websites with the MediaRating B- and C are excluded from the Newsfeed. We also exclude websites that are listed by NFNZ and Konspiratori.sk as misinformative.
·       Only quality journalism is published automatically, but with editorial oversight. Based on the common standards of quality journalism, we have introduced a stricter obligation to source information and quotations properly even in texts that do not qualify as news (including blog posts). 
·       Only news outlets with the highest quality ratings are allowed to publish their contents directly in our Newsfeed. However, their articles are also checked retroactively by automated tools and human editors.

 
Seznam Medium
·       Our blogging service applies similarly strict editorial principles as Newsfeed does. 
·       According to our terms of service, bloggers must not disseminate or promote misinformation or conspiracy theories; may not link to misinformation websites (based on the lists of NFNZ, Nelež and Konšpirátori.sk), or use content of such websites. 
·       All blogs posted to Seznam Medium are checked by human editors who may unpublish blogs or ban users breaching the terms. We also have internal editorial guidelines that are followed.

 
Seznam Discussions, to combat TTPs, relies on AI and human editors assessing content, as well as fact-checkers moderating discussions.
·       We equipped discussion editors and fact-checkers with comprehensive internal guidelines. Our fact-checkers add context to manipulative or misinformative comments based on independent third-party sources such as EUvsDisinfo, AFP and other international and national trusted sources. 
·       Our editors verify and eventually ban fake accounts, and accounts that deploy TTPs or otherwise violate our policy.
·       However, our approach is focused on the behavior evaluation of each actor. We look for specific patterns of behaviors exhibited by malicious actors, and not only for violating content. Whenever possible, we prefer to correct the information and lead users with good intentions to credible sources of information. On the other hand, we pay special attention to the most common misinformation narratives and TTPs deployed by malicious actors and apply stricter sanctions.  
·       E.g. Following the onset of the war in Ukraine, we began banning accounts that consistently disseminated pro-Kremlin narratives, hate speech against Ukrainians, and support or justification for the Russian invasion. 
·       While most of the misinformation we currently address relates to the war in Ukraine, we also tackle myths and hoaxes about global security, vaccines, Czech politics, LGBTQI+ and others.

Measure 14.2

Relevant Signatories will keep a detailed, up-to-date list of their publicly available policies that clarifies behaviours and practices that are prohibited on their services and will outline in their reports how their respective policies and their implementation address the above set of TTPs, threats and harms as well as other relevant threats.

QRE 14.2.1

Relevant Signatories will report on actions taken to implement the policies they list in their reports and covering the range of TTPs identified/employed, at the Member State level.

Seznam Search counters misinformation by promoting of high-quality and authentic content and by demoting low-quality content via a ranking system. In addition, we use a risk-based approach to misinformation websites that appear in Seznam Search results. We base our findings on independent sources and display relevant labels and warnings accordingly:
 
1)     Category 1: Blocked illegal content based on EU guidelines: The strictest red no-click-through message. We don’t allow users to click through to target website, even if it appears in search results.

2)     Category 2: Flagged misinformation based on the independent media ratings (NFNZ, Konspiratori.sk, Atlas of Conspiracies): The less strict red warning that alerts users before visiting a known misinformation website. An optional box explains why a particular site is problematic.
·       We do not display videos from the domains listed above in our search results.
·       Links to misinformation websites appear in our search results very rarely. But we can see that those users who want to see such content are very determined and as many as 90% ignore the Category 2 warning and continue to the site.

 

Seznam Newsfeed relies on a combination of people and AI to enforce Seznam Newsfeed policies. 
·       All texts are checked and pre-categorized by AI, using e.g. clickbait headline detection tools. Majority of the articles submitted are consequently checked by human editors to ensure the policy rules are followed. 
·       Additionally, we work closely with our partners to educate them on our policies and help them to comply. For more details see Guidelines on information sourcing, Q&A Why my article is not on the Newsfeed, Guidelines NFNZ rules, and Guidelines on NFNZ Media rating.

 
Seznam Medium
·       Our blogging service applies similarly strict editorial principles as Newsfeed does. According to our terms of service, bloggers must not disseminate or promote misinformation or conspiracy theories; may not link to misinformation websites (based on the lists of NFNZ, Nelež and Konšpirátori.sk), or use content of such websites. 
·       All blogs posted to Seznam Medium are checked by human editors who may unpublish blogs or ban users breaching the terms. We also have internal editorial guidelines that are followed.

 
Seznam Discussions policies are enforced by AI, human editors/fact-checkers on a daily basis. 

1)     Vulgar comments or comments containing links to misinformation sites are filtered automatically and cannot be posted. 

2)     We empower and make it easy for users to report any content that violates policies. They are further assessed by our editorial team.

3)     Our systems automatically flag comments with specific keywords to be further assessed by the editorial team. Our team of editors & fact-checkers adds explanations and gives context to manipulative comments.

4)     We strictly take down and ban severe spread of misinformation, hate speech and other illegal content. We, however, try to take down as few posts as possible. When user comments are manipulative or misleading, our editors provide context, explain & debunk manipulations.

We also implemented a risk-based internal procedure for our editors to deal with violations, prioritizing flagged and potentially harmful content.

Commitment 15

Relevant Signatories that develop or operate AI systems and that disseminate AI-generated and manipulated content through their services (e.g. deepfakes) commit to take into consideration the transparency obligations and the list of manipulative practices prohibited under the proposal for Artificial Intelligence Act.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 15.1

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Measure 15.1

Relevant signatories will establish or confirm their policies in place for countering prohibited manipulative practices for AI systems that generate or manipulate content, such as warning users and proactively detect such content.

QRE 15.1.1

In line with EU and national legislation, Relevant Signatories will report on their policies in place for countering prohibited manipulative practices for AI systems that generate or manipulate content.

Seznam.cz develops and operates all AI systems in line with existing EU and national laws, while taking into consideration future legal and technical challenges. 

As the leading online news media house in Czechia, we pay special attention to use of AI system in journalistic context. Being aware of the advantages and pitfalls of generative AI, that can help humans to create both quality media content as well as deepfakes and misinformation at scale, we see self-regulatory framework for news editors crucial to fight misinformation and disinformation. 

Thus, our news outlet Seznam Zpravy has editorial code of practice on using generative AI. In the same way, we prohibit automatically generated and/or translated content in Seznam Newsfeed policies, and we flag it on Seznam Medium (see terms of service). 

We use our proprietary AI-powered detection tool and trained human editors to filter AI-generated content and deepfakes.

We implement AI Act rules into our internal processes to the maximum possible scope, especially transparency obligations related to foundation models. From our point of views, data is the central element of the development and operation of these AI systems and quality data would decrease discrimination and quality of data risks, protect personal data, and enable users to verify sources of information.

Commitment 16

Relevant Signatories commit to operate channels of exchange between their relevant teams in order to proactively share information about cross-platform influence operations, foreign interference in information space and relevant incidents that emerge on their respective services, with the aim of preventing dissemination and resurgence on other services, in full compliance with privacy legislation and with due consideration for security and human rights risks.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 16.1 Measure 16.2

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Measure 16.1

Relevant Signatories will share relevant information about cross-platform information manipulation, foreign interference in information space and incidents that emerge on their respective services for instance via a dedicated sub-group of the permanent Task-force or via existing fora for exchanging such information.

No sharing occured in 2024.

QRE 16.1.1

Relevant Signatories will disclose the fora they use for information sharing as well as information about learnings derived from this sharing.

No sharing occured in 2024.

SLI 16.1.1

Number of actions taken as a result of the collaboration and information sharing between signatories. Where they have such information, they will specify which Member States that were affected (including information about the content being detected and acted upon due to this collaboration).

0 actions

Measure 16.2

Relevant Signatories will pay specific attention to and share information on the tactical migration of known actors of misinformation, disinformation and information manipulation across different platforms as a way to circumvent moderation policies, engage different audiences or coordinate action on platforms with less scrutiny and policy bandwidth.

We have teams of editors in place for our Newsfeed, Discussions and Medium (blogging) services that use a combination of proprietary automation tools and human oversight to spot such behaviour. 
They take action such as identification of a user by ID, banning a user (temporarily or permanently), unpublishing/deletion of blogs or comments. 
These policies are contained in terms of service of all above-mentioned services.

QRE 16.2.1

As a result of the collaboration and information sharing between them, Relevant Signatories will share qualitative examples and case studies of migration tactics employed and advertised by such actors on their platforms as observed by their moderation team and/or external partners from Academia or fact-checking organisations engaged in such monitoring.

0 case studies

Empowering Users

Commitment 17

In light of the European Commission's initiatives in the area of media literacy, including the new Digital Education Action Plan, Relevant Signatories commit to continue and strengthen their efforts in the area of media literacy and critical thinking, also with the aim to include vulnerable groups.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 17.1 Measure 17.2 Measure 17.3

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Measure 17.1

Relevant Signatories will design and implement or continue to maintain tools to improve media literacy and critical thinking, for instance by empowering users with context on the content visible on services or with guidance on how to evaluate online content.

QRE 17.1.1

Relevant Signatories will outline the tools they develop or maintain that are relevant to this commitment and report on their deployment in each Member State.

While Seznam.cz aims to develop media literacy and critical thinking of general public at scale by policies and actions described under Commitment 14 (e.g. Seznam Discussions fact-checking, Seznam Search warnings with educational explanation, or Seznam Newsfeedpromotion of quality journalism) it continues and strengthen activities in the area of media literacy and critical thinking targeted on specific groups.

To improve media literacy and critical thinking of upcoming generations Seznam.cz runs the “Get to Know Media” program for elementary and high school teachers. We also organize our annual Media Education Festival, which gathers key media educators in Czechia and is intended for all those who are involved in media education. We aim to provide teachers with our up-to-date fact-checks in searchable form.

To improve media literacy and critical thinking of elder people, who are particularly vulnerable in online environment, Seznam.cz runs the “Sherlock Senior” program for people in retirement age. However, in 2024 it operated only online via regular newsletters.

SLI 17.1.1

Relevant Signatories will report, at the Member State level, on metrics pertinent to assessing the effects of the tools described in the qualitative reporting element for Measure 17.1, which will include: the total count of impressions of the tool; and information on the interactions/engagement with the tool.

Data on displayed warnings with educational explanation in Seznam Search, data on the way we promote quality journalism in Seznam Newsfeed and Seznam Medium can be found in the SLI 14.2.1 – SLI 14.2.4

Data on fact-checking on Seznam Discussions can be found in the SLI 21.1.2.

Country Total count of the tool’s impressions Interactions/ engagement with the tool Other relevant metrics
Austria 0 0 0
Belgium 0 0 0
Bulgaria 0 0 0
Croatia 0 0 0
Cyprus 0 0 0
Czech Republic 0 0 0
Denmark 0 0 0
Estonia 0 0 0
Finland 0 0 0
France 0 0 0
Germany 0 0 0
Greece 0 0 0
Hungary 0 0 0
Ireland 0 0 0
Italy 0 0 0
Latvia 0 0 0
Lithuania 0 0 0
Luxembourg 0 0 0
Malta 0 0 0
Netherlands 0 0 0
Poland 0 0 0
Portugal 0 0 0
Romania 0 0 0
Slovakia 0 0 0
Slovenia 0 0 0
Spain 0 0 0
Sweden 0 0 0
Iceland 0 0 0
Liechtenstein 0 0 0
Norway 0 0 0

Measure 17.2

Relevant Signatories will develop, promote and/or support or continue to run activities to improve media literacy and critical thinking such as campaigns to raise awareness about Disinformation, as well as the TTPs that are being used by malicious actors, among the general public across the European Union, also considering the involvement of vulnerable communities.

QRE 17.2.1

Relevant Signatories will describe the activities they launch or support and the Member States they target and reach. Relevant signatories will further report on actions taken to promote the campaigns to their user base per Member States targeted.

Media literacy for teachers and kids
·       In 2019, Seznam started the “Get to Know Media” program for elementary and high school teachers. In partnership with a renowned expert, Michal Kaderka from the Charles University, we created a comprehensive and practical methodology for teaching media literacy at schools. 
·       Our aim is to elevate knowledge about workings of the media, train fact-checking skills, and educate social media algorithms, misinformation, manipulation, porn, advertising, and other important topics.
·       In addition, we run free online courses for Czech teachers and provide them with educational materials to be used in classes. 
·       We also distribute regular newsletters that are also published on our corporate blog.


Media Education Festival
·       In August 2024, we organized our annual Media Education Festival, which gathered key media educators in Czechia and was intended for all those who are or want to be involved in media education. 
·       Over 80 teachers and librarians joined the festival in Prague. 

Academy of Media Education:
·       The Academy helps teachers who have already received training in media education topics in the past, but have not yet applied media education in their teaching or are just starting out.
·       It aims to create a community of media education educators. Teachers who want to include media education in their lessons, as well as those who are just starting out in teaching this topic, can join. 
·       The program consists of meetings at the headquarters of Seznam.cz, visits to selected editorial offices, and online workshops.

Media literacy for elderly people
To improve media literacy and critical thinking of elder people, who are particularly vulnerable in online environment, Seznam.cz runs the “Sherlock Senior” program for people in retirement age. However, in 2024 it operated only online via regular newsletters.

Measure 17.3

For both of the above Measures, and in order to build on the expertise of media literacy experts in the design, implementation, and impact measurement of tools, relevant Signatories will partner or consult with media literacy experts in the EU, including for instance the Commission's Media Literacy Expert Group, ERGA's Media Literacy Action Group, EDMO, its country-specific branches, or relevant Member State universities or organisations that have relevant expertise.

QRE 17.3.1

Relevant Signatories will describe how they involved and partnered with media literacy experts for the purposes of all Measures in this Commitment.

  • Media literacy for teachers and kids: The “Get to Know Media” and “Sherlock Senior” programs are developed in partnership with a renowned expert, Michal Kaderka from the Charles University in Prague. In a close collaboration, we developed a comprehensive and practical methodology for teaching media literacy to a wide range of audiences. 
  • We are in close contact with CEDMO. We shared our best practices with other signatories, regulators, fact-checkers and media literacy experts at CEDMO International Conference in Prague on November 5, 2024.
  • We have long-term partnerships with Czech and Slovak fact-checking and media quality rating projects such as NFNZ, Konšpirátori.sk and Atlas konspirací. See more on our website.

Commitment 18

Relevant Signatories commit to minimise the risks of viral propagation of Disinformation by adopting safe design practices as they develop their systems, policies, and features.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 18.1 Measure 18.2 Measure 18.3

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Measure 18.1

Relevant Signatories will take measures to mitigate risks of their services fuelling the viral spread of harmful Disinformation, such as: recommender systems designed to improve the prominence of authoritative information and reduce the prominence of Disinformation based on clear and transparent methods and approaches for defining the criteria for authoritative information; other systemic approaches in the design of their products, policies, or processes, such as pre-testing.

QRE 18.1.1

Relevant Signatories will report on the risk mitigation systems, tools, procedures, or features deployed under Measure 18.1 and report on their deployment in each EU Member State.

Seznam Discussions minimises the risks of viral propagation of misinformation by adopting and enforcing its policies described in detail under Commitment 14 and by implementing a risk-based internal procedure for editors to prioritize action against viral disinformation and misinformation content. 

To minimize the risks of viral propagation of misinformation, Seznam Discussions adopted following safe design practices and features:

1)     Comments containing links to misinformation sites are filtered automatically and cannot be posted; 

2)     Users are empowered with feature to easily report such content;

3)     Our systems automatically flag content that includes specific keywords;

4)     Our fact-checkers label and add context to manipulative/misinformative comments also based on user feedback;

5)     Our editors take down and ban severe spread of misinformation, hate speech and other illegal content as quickly as possible.

 

Seznam Newsfeed and Seznam Medium minimise the risks of viral propagation of disinformation by adopting and enforcing policies for what can appear in the service described in detail under Commitment 14.

In Seznam Newsfeed, all articles are checked and pre-categorized by AI, using e.g. clickbait headline detection tool and further checked by human editors. Only quality journalism is published automatically, but with editorial oversight. About half of the articles submitted are consequently checked by human editors to ensure the policy rules are followed and violating content doesn’t appear on Seznam Newsfeed.


In addition, we empower users of Seznam Newsfeed with recommender modifiers. By pressing X on our homepage, users can:
a) hide entire news outlet;
b) express they are not interested in such content and downgrade it;
c) report article as misleading or false.

QRE 18.1.2

Relevant Signatories will publish the main parameters of their recommender systems, both in their report and, once it is operational, on the Transparency Centre.

Information on how Seznam Search works can be found here.Information of Seznam Newsfeed recommender can be found here 

QRE 18.1.3

Relevant Signatories will outline how they design their products, policies, or processes, to reduce the impressions and engagement with Disinformation whether through recommender systems or through other systemic approaches, and/or to increase the visibility of authoritative information.

Seznam Search prioritizes high-quality and authentic information sources to provide users with the most relevant content and best user experience. A risk-based approach is in place to further reduce users’ engagement with misinformation websites that appear in Seznam Search results by displaying labels and warnings described in detail under Commitment 14.


Seznam Newsfeed reduces the engagement with disinformation by adopting and enforcing policies for what can appear in the service described in detail under Commitment 14.

All texts are checked and pre-categorized by technology, using e.g. clickbait headline detection tools and only quality journalism is published automatically, but with editorial oversight. About half of the articles submitted are consequently checked by human editors to ensure the policy rules are followed and violating content doesn’t appear in Seznam Newsfeed.


Seznam Discussions reduces the engagement with disinformation by adopting and enforcing its policies described in detail under Commitment 14. However, we put emphasis on debunking of disinformation, providing context and credible sources of information by our fact-checkers as described under Commitment 21.

SLI 18.1.1

Relevant Signatories will provide, through meaningful metrics capable of catering for the performance of their products, policies, processes (including recommender systems), or other systemic approaches as relevant to Measure 18.1 an estimation of the effectiveness of such measures, such as the reduction of the prevalence, views, or impressions of Disinformation and/or the increase in visibility of authoritative information. Insofar as possible, Relevant Signatories will highlight the causal effects of those measures.

Data on displayed warnings with educational explanation in Seznam Search, data on the way we promote quality journalism in Seznam Newsfeed and Seznam Medium can be found in the SLI 14.2.1 – SLI 14.2.4

Data on fact-checking on Seznam Discussion can be found in the SLI 21.1.2.

Country Reduction of prevalence of disinformation Reduction of views/ impressions of disinformation Increase in visibility of authoritative information Other relevant metrics
Austria 0 0 0 0
Belgium 0 0 0 0
Bulgaria 0 0 0 0
Croatia 0 0 0 0
Cyprus 0 0 0 0
Czech Republic 0 0 0 0
Denmark 0 0 0 0
Estonia 0 0 0 0
Finland 0 0 0 0
France 0 0 0 0
Germany 0 0 0 0
Greece 0 0 0 0
Hungary 0 0 0 0
Ireland 0 0 0 0
Italy 0 0 0 0
Latvia 0 0 0 0
Lithuania 0 0 0 0
Luxembourg 0 0 0 0
Malta 0 0 0 0
Netherlands 0 0 0 0
Poland 0 0 0 0
Portugal 0 0 0 0
Romania 0 0 0 0
Slovakia 0 0 0 0
Slovenia 0 0 0 0
Spain 0 0 0 0
Sweden 0 0 0 0
Iceland 0 0 0 0
Liechtenstein 0 0 0 0
Norway 0 0 0 0

Measure 18.2

Relevant Signatories will develop and enforce publicly documented, proportionate policies to limit the spread of harmful false or misleading information (as depends on the service, such as prohibiting, downranking, or not recommending harmful false or misleading information, adapted to the severity of the impacts and with due regard to freedom of expression and information); and take action on webpages or actors that persistently violate these policies.

QRE 18.2.1

Relevant Signatories will report on the policies or terms of service that are relevant to Measure 18.2 and on their approach towards persistent violations of these policies.

Seznam Newsfeed and Seznam Medium have policies, described in detail under Commitment 14, for what can appear in the services, making sure that harmful, false, or misleading content doesn’t appear there. 

Websites that spread misinformation or conspiracy theories, or links to these sites, are excluded from the services. 

We have deployed a new internal rating system (Aura) that continuously measures average quality of each website in Seznam Newsfeed. The quality influence the position in our recommender algorithm. 
 

Seznam Discussions policies prohibit any content in breach of both private and public law. Any content that incites hatred towards individuals or groups of the population based on racial or religious affiliation and nationality is prohibited. We have several levels of verification that apply proportionally to the behavior and reach of a particular account and harmful content spread through the account. 

Editors take down severe spread of misinformation, hate speech and other illegal content and ban accounts that repeatedly violate these policies. Links to misinformation sites are filtered automatically and cannot be posted. Manipulative comments are labeled and fact-checked by our editors.

SLI 18.2.1

Relevant Signatories will report on actions taken in response to violations of policies relevant to Measure 18.2, at the Member State level. The metrics shall include: Total number of violations and Meaningful metrics to measure the impact of these actions (such as their impact on the visibility of or the engagement with content that was actioned upon).

Data on displayed warnings with educational explanation in Seznam Search, data on the way we promote quality journalism in Seznam Newsfeed and Seznam Medium can be found in the SLI 14.2.1 – SLI 14.2.4

Data on fact-checking on Seznam Discissions can be found in the SLI 21.1.2.

Country Total no of violations Metric 1: indicating the impact of the action taken Metric 2: indicating the impact of the action taken Metric 3: indicating the impact of the action taken
Austria 0 0 0 0
Belgium 0 0 0 0
Bulgaria 0 0 0 0
Croatia 0 0 0 0
Cyprus 0 0 0 0
Czech Republic 0 0 0 0
Denmark 0 0 0 0
Estonia 0 0 0 0
Finland 0 0 0 0
France 0 0 0 0
Germany 0 0 0 0
Greece 0 0 0 0
Hungary 0 0 0 0
Ireland 0 0 0 0
Italy 0 0 0 0
Latvia 0 0 0 0
Lithuania 0 0 0 0
Luxembourg 0 0 0 0
Malta 0 0 0 0
Netherlands 0 0 0 0
Poland 0 0 0 0
Portugal 0 0 0 0
Romania 0 0 0 0
Slovakia 0 0 0 0
Slovenia 0 0 0 0
Spain 0 0 0 0
Sweden 0 0 0 0
Iceland 0 0 0 0
Liechtenstein 0 0 0 0
Norway 0 0 0 0

Measure 18.3

Relevant Signatories will invest and/or participate in research efforts on the spread of harmful Disinformation online and related safe design practices, will make findings available to the public or report on those to the Code's taskforce. They will disclose and discuss findings within the permanent Task-force, and explain how they intend to use these findings to improve existing safe design practices and features or develop new ones.

QRE 18.3.1

Relevant Signatories will describe research efforts, both in-house and in partnership with third-party organisations, on the spread of harmful Disinformation online and relevant safe design practices, as well as actions or changes as a result of this research. Relevant Signatories will include where possible information on financial investments in said research. Wherever possible, they will make their findings available to the general public.

  • We have long-term partnerships with Czech and Slovak fact-checking and media quality rating projects such as NFNZ, Konšpirátori.sk and Atlas konspirací. See more on our website.
  • As a part of our fact-checking efforts, we have made public our database of debunks that addresses most widely spread misinformation in the Czech online space. This database is prepared by our editors with the use of independent fact-checking projects by AFP, EUvsDisinfo and other reputable institutions. These debunks are then added to disputable comments in Seznam Discussions by our AI tools and editors.
  • We are in close contact with CEDMO. We shared our best practices with other signatories, regulators, fact-checkers and media literacy experts at CEDMO International Conference in Prague on November 5, 2024.

Commitment 19

Relevant Signatories using recommender systems commit to make them transparent to the recipients regarding the main criteria and parameters used for prioritising or deprioritising information, and provide options to users about recommender systems, and make available information on those options.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 19.2

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Measure 19.2

Relevant Signatories will provide options for the recipients of the service to select and to modify at any time their preferred options for relevant recommender systems, including giving users transparency about those options.

Seznam Newsfeed

We provided users with a feature to adjusts the recommender system. By pressing X user is empowered to:
a) hide entire news outlet ("Show me less content from this medium")
b) express they are not interested in such content and downgrade it ("Article is not interesting")
c) report article as misleading or false ("Report this article")

A new, more detailed reporting features were deployed in the end of 2024.

Commitment 21

Relevant Signatories commit to strengthen their efforts to better equip users to identify Disinformation. In particular, in order to enable users to navigate services in an informed way, Relevant Signatories commit to facilitate, across all Member States languages in which their services are provided, user access to tools for assessing the factual accuracy of sources through fact-checks from fact-checking organisations that have flagged potential Disinformation, as well as warning labels from other authoritative sources.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 21.1

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Measure 21.1

Relevant Signatories will further develop and apply policies, features, or programs across Member States and EU languages to help users benefit from the context and insights provided by independent fact-checkers or authoritative sources, for instance by means of labels, such as labels indicating fact-checker ratings, notices to users who try to share or previously shared the rated content, information panels, or by acting upon content notified by fact-checkers that violate their policies.

QRE 21.1.1

Relevant Signatories will report on the policies, features, or programs they deploy to meet this Measure and on their availability across Member States.

Seznam.cz is committed to strengthen efforts to better equip users to identify disinformation. We facilitate users across our services access to information from fact-checkers and fact-checking organizations as explained in detail under Commitment 14. 

Our steadfast partnership with impartial civic and academic institutions ensures a fair and objective rating of the media outlets we aggregate, rank, and display within our services and sites.

The Endowment Fund for Independent Journalism (NFNZ) provides us with their MediaRating. This rating system, derived from extensive research carried out by experts at Charles University, ensures that we refrain from publishing news from websites that fail to meet the criteria. NFNZ MediaRating methodology is available here.

In partnership with NFNZ and other independent evaluators, such as Konšpirátori.sk and Nelež, we also identify, flag, and offer our users the option to blacklist misinformation sites within our services. 

Finally, we closely monitor emerging misinformation narratives to counter them on Seznam Discussions and other services. 

Commitment 22

Relevant Signatories commit to provide users with tools to help them make more informed decisions when they encounter online information that may be false or misleading, and to facilitate user access to tools and information to assess the trustworthiness of information sources, such as indicators of trustworthiness for informed online navigation, particularly relating to societal issues or debates of general interest.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 22.1 Measure 22.2

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Measure 22.1

Relevant Signatories will make it possible for users of their services to access indicators of trustworthiness (such as trust marks focused on the integrity of the source and the methodology behind such indicators) developed by independent third-parties, in collaboration with the news media, including associations of journalists and media freedom organisations, as well as fact-checkers and other relevant entities, that can support users in making informed choices.

QRE 22.1.1

Relevant Signatories will report on how they enable users of their services to benefit from such indicators or trust marks.

Seznam Search counters misinformation by promoting of high-quality and authentic content and by demoting low-quality content via a ranking system. In addition, we use a risk-based approach to misinformation websites that appear in Seznam Search results. We base our findings on independent sources and display relevant labels and warnings accordingly:
1)     Category 1: Blocked illegal content based on EU guidelines: The strictest red no-click-through message. We don’t allow users to click through to target website, even if it appears in search results.
2)     Category 2: Flagged misinformation based on the independent media ratings (NFNZ, Konspiratori.sk, Atlas of Conspiracies): The less strict red warning that alerts users before visiting a known misinformation website. An optional box explains why a particular site is problematic.
·       We do not display videos from the domains listed above in our search results.
·       Links to misinformation websites appear in our search results very rarely. But we can see that those users who want to see such content are very determined and as many as 90% ignore the Category 2 warning and continue to the site.

Seznam Discussions
·       Our AI helps editors detect misinformation narrative in comments. Then, it suggests fact-checking by labelling misinformative comments and adding context boxes. 
·       We equipped discussion editors and fact-checkers with comprehensive internal guidelines. Our fact-checkers add context to manipulative or misinformative comments based on independent third-party sources such as Demagog, EUvsDisinfo, AFP and other international and national trusted sources.
·       We compiled almost 300 fact-checks on various issues in 2024 and made them available online.

SLI 22.1.1

Relevant Signatories will report on Member State level percentage of users that have enabled the trustworthiness indicator.

See data under Commitments 14 and 21.

Country Percentage of users that have enabled the trustworthiness indicator
Austria 0
Belgium 0
Bulgaria 0
Croatia 0
Cyprus 0
Czech Republic 0
Denmark 0
Estonia 0
Finland 0
France 0
Germany 0
Greece 0
Hungary 0
Ireland 0
Italy 0
Latvia 0
Lithuania 0
Luxembourg 0
Malta 0
Netherlands 0
Poland 0
Portugal 0
Romania 0
Slovakia 0
Slovenia 0
Spain 0
Sweden 0
Iceland 0
Liechtenstein 0
Norway 0

Measure 22.2

Relevant Signatories will give users the option of having signals relating to the trustworthiness of media sources into the recommender systems or feed such signals into their recommender systems.

QRE 22.2.1

Relevant Signatories will report on whether and, if relevant, how they feed signals related to the trustworthiness of media sources into their recommender systems, and outline the rationale for their approach.

Information of Seznam Newsfeed recommender can be found here