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.

• Our search systems prioritise high-quality and authentic sources to deliver the most relevant content to users, while reducing the reach of low-quality content spread through deceptive or manipulative behaviour as outlined in Commitment 14, using spam detection tools.
• These measures address TTPs relevant to search engines at scale — such as inauthentic domains or coordinated inauthentic amplification. We also warn users directly against known misinformation websites: warnings appear in organic search results beneath links to such sites, and images and videos from these domains are not displayed.

• All news websites displayed in Seznam Newsfeed are required to hold an Independent Media Rating issued by the Foundation for Independent Journalism (NFNZ).
• Websites that disseminate or promote misinformation or conspiracy theories are excluded from the feed.
• We enforce a policy limiting clickbait headlines and other deceptive or manipulative editorial practices.
• All partner websites must comply with our sourcing standards and editorial guidelines, ensuring readers can trace the origin of information and assess its credibility. Furthermore, we provide guidelines for our partners and require compliance with standards for information sourcing.
• Stricter rules apply to health and science content, where accuracy and source transparency are held to a higher standard.

• To counter inauthentic and deceptive behaviour as outlined in Commitment 14, our policies require users to operate under their real identity. Fake accounts are prohibited, and we apply proportional verification across multiple levels based on account behaviour and reach. We further prohibit impersonation of individuals or organisations and any form of coordinated inauthentic behaviour.
• Any unlawful content is forbidden. We pay particular attention to content inciting hatred based on racial or religious affiliation or nationality, and additionally prohibit vulgar or obscene language, slander, and threats of violence.
• We limit the spread of spam and other TTPs listed in Commitment 14 by targeting content with suspicious characteristics (e.g. sensitive keywords, unusually high output of comments), reposted content, and content spreading misinformation or linking to misinformation websites.
• We fact-check manipulative comments, label them, and add context boxes to provide users with accurate information.
• To prevent abuse of our services for commercial or other gain, we remove content containing personally identifiable or private information obtained from illegal sources or published without consent.
• All the above is enforced through a combination of AI tools and human editors.

QRE 14.1.2

Signatories will report on their proactive efforts to detect impermissible content, behaviours, TTPs and practices relevant to this commitment.

• We use a combination of machine learning and human oversight to prioritise high-quality, authentic content and reduce the reach of low-quality content spread through deceptive or manipulative behaviour as outlined in Commitment 14. Further details on how Seznam Search operates are available here.
• To identify and flag disinformation websites, Seznam Search draws on a range of external sources, including EU Guidelines, the National Centre for Cybernetic Operations, the Foundation for Independent Journalism (NFNZ), the Atlas of Conspiracies project, and the Slovak initiative Konspiratori.sk. Appropriate warnings are displayed to users in search results accordingly.

• Each day, approximately 3,000 articles are submitted by partner websites. Around 2,000 are published after automated checks and pre-categorisation — including clickbait headline detection and topic specificity classification — while nearly half of all submitted texts also undergo manual review by trained editors.
• Editorial decisions are guided by detailed internal guidelines and the independent Media Rating published by the Foundation for Independent Journalism (NFNZ). Websites rated B- or C are excluded from the Newsfeed, as are websites listed by NFNZ or Konspiratori.sk as misinformative.
• Only content meeting the standards of quality journalism is published automatically, and all such content remains subject to editorial oversight. We apply strict sourcing requirements to all submitted texts — including blog posts — regardless of whether they qualify as news.
• News outlets with the highest quality ratings may publish content directly to the Newsfeed; however, their articles remain subject to retroactive checks by both automated tools and human editors.

• Under our terms of service, bloggers are prohibited from disseminating or promoting misinformation or conspiracy theories, linking to misinformation websites, or using content sourced from such websites. Blacklisted domains are identified based on lists maintained by NFNZ, Nelež, and Konšpirátori.sk.
• All blogs are reviewed by human editors, who have the authority to unpublish content or ban users in breach of the terms of service. Editorial decisions are further guided by detailed internal guidelines.

• Our editors and fact-checkers operate according to comprehensive internal guidelines. Fact-checkers add context to manipulative or misinformative comments drawing on independent third-party sources, including EUvsDisinfo, AFP, and other trusted international and national outlets.
• Since August 2025, our fact-checking is subject to an additional independent review layer provided by three academic institutions — Anglo-American University, the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, and the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University — further strengthening the impartiality and objectivity of our assessments.
• Editors verify and ban fake accounts, as well as accounts deploying TTPs or otherwise violating our policies.
• Our moderation approach focuses on behavioural evaluation rather than content removal alone. We identify specific patterns of behaviour exhibited by malicious actors and, wherever possible, prefer to correct misinformation and direct users to credible sources. Stricter sanctions are applied to accounts consistently deploying the most harmful narratives and TTPs.
• While the war in Ukraine remains the most prevalent source of misinformation we address, we also tackle hoaxes and false narratives related to global security, vaccines, Czech politics, LGBTQI+ issues, 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.

• Category 1 — Blocked illegal content (based on EU Guidelines): The strictest intervention. Users are shown a hard red warning and are not permitted to click through to the target website, even if it appears in search results.
• Category 2 — Flagged misinformation (based on independent ratings by NFNZ, Konspiratori.sk, and the Atlas of Conspiracies): A red warning alerts users before they visit a known misinformation website, with an optional explanatory box detailing why the site has been flagged.
• Videos from domains flagged under either category are not displayed in search results.
• Links to misinformation websites appear in our search results only rarely. However, data indicates that users actively seeking such content are highly determined — approximately 90% dismiss the Category 2 warning and proceed to the site regardless.

• All submitted texts are automatically checked and pre-categorised by AI — including through clickbait headline detection — and the majority subsequently undergo review by human editors to ensure full policy compliance.
• We work closely with our partners to help them understand and meet our editorial standards. Relevant guidance is available in our internal documentation, including Guidelines on information sourcing, Q&A Why my article is not on the Newsfeed, Guidelines NFNZ rules, and Guidelines on NFNZ Media rating.

• Under our terms of service, bloggers are prohibited from disseminating or promoting misinformation or conspiracy theories, linking to misinformation websites, or using content sourced from such websites. Blacklisted domains are identified based on lists maintained by NFNZ, Nelež, and Konšpirátori.sk.
• All blogs are reviewed by human editors, who have the authority to unpublish content or ban users in breach of the terms of service. Editorial decisions are further guided by detailed internal guidelines.

1. Vulgar comments and comments containing links to misinformation websites are filtered automatically and cannot be posted.
2. Users can easily report content that violates our policies; all reports are subsequently assessed by our editorial team.
3. Our systems automatically flag comments containing specific keywords for further editorial review. Editors and fact-checkers add explanations and context to manipulative or misleading comments rather than defaulting to removal.
4. Severe cases of misinformation, hate speech, and other illegal content are swiftly taken down and sanctioned. However, our general approach favours correction over deletion — where comments are manipulative or misleading, editors provide context, explain the issue, and debunk the manipulation.

SLI 14.2.1

Number of instances of identified TTPs and actions taken at the Member State level under policies addressing each of the TTPs as well as information on the type of content.

Country	SEZNAM SEARCH - Category 1 Number of disinfo sites	SEZNAM SEARCH - Category 1 No. of displays	SEZNAM SEARCH - Category 1 Pop-up displays	SEZNAM SEARCH - Category 2 Number of disinfo sites	SEZNAM SEARCH - Category 2 No. of displays	SEZNAM SEARCH - Category 2 Pop-up displays	SEZNAM NEWSFEED - Articles published	SEZNAM NEWSFEED - Articles rejected by editors	SEZNAM MEDIUM - Blogposts checked by editors	SEZNAM MEDIUM - Blogposts rejected by editors or unpublished by authors	SEZNAM DISCUSSIONS - Comments taken down by editors	SEZNAM DISCUSSIONS - Users banned to request ID	SEZNAM DISCUSSIONS - Users banned for any reason
Czech Republic	4	11809	613	40	6151093	1501604	721109	45735	99676	1001	555025	9298	10499

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.

• Our news outlet Seznam Zprávy operates under an editorial code of practice governing the use of generative AI. Accordingly, we prohibit automatically generated or translated content in Seznam Newsfeed, and flag such content on Seznam Medium, in line with our respective terms of service (see terms of service).
• We use a proprietary AI-powered detection tool, supported by trained human editors, to identify and filter AI-generated content and deepfakes.
• In 2025, we launched our own AI Assistant, designed with trustworthiness as a core principle. The assistant is built to surface reliable, verified news content and incorporates safeguards to prevent the generation or amplification of misinformation.
• We implement the requirements of the EU AI Act into our internal processes to the fullest extent possible, with particular focus on transparency obligations related to foundation models. We consider data quality to be central to the responsible development of AI systems — high-quality data reduces the risk of discrimination, protects personal data, and enables users to verify the sources of information they receive.

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.

• Dedicated editorial teams across Seznam Newsfeed, Discussions / Lide.cz, and Seznam Medium use a combination of proprietary automation tools and human oversight to identify and address policy-violating behaviour.
• Available enforcement actions include user identification, temporary or permanent account bans, and the unpublishing or deletion of blogs and comments.
• These policies are set out in the terms of service of each of the above-mentioned services.

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).

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.

• Dedicated editorial teams across Seznam Newsfeed, Discussions / Lide.cz, and Seznam Medium use a combination of proprietary automation tools and human oversight to identify and address policy-violating behaviour.
• Available enforcement actions include user identification, temporary or permanent account bans, and the unpublishing or deletion of blogs and comments.
• These policies are set out in the terms of service of each of the above-mentioned services.

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.

• To build media literacy among younger generations, we run the “Get to Know Media” programme for elementary and high school teachers, and organise our annual Media Education Festival, which brings together key media educators from across Czechia. We also provide teachers with access to our up-to-date fact-checks in searchable form.
• To support older adults — who are particularly vulnerable in the online environment — we run the “Sherlock Senior” programme for people of retirement age. In 2025, the programme continued to operate online through 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.

• We offer free online courses for Czech teachers and provide ready-to-use educational materials for classroom use.
• We distribute regular newsletters on media literacy topics, also published on our corporate blog.

• The Academy aims to build a community of media education practitioners, welcoming both experienced and newly starting teachers.
• The programme includes meetings at Seznam.cz headquarters, visits to selected editorial offices, and online workshops.

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.

• 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 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.
• Since August 2025, our fact-checking is subject to an additional independent review provided by three academic institutions — Anglo-American University, the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, and the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University — further strengthening the impartiality and objectivity of our assessments.
• We partnered with Demagog.cz, a fellow Code signatory, to fact-check political advertisements in the run up to the Czech parliamentary election. Ads rated as false or misleading were stopped from running on our platforms.

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.

1. Comments containing links to misinformation websites are filtered automatically and cannot be posted.
2. Users can easily report content that violates our policies.
3. Our systems automatically flag comments containing specific keywords for editorial review.
4. Fact-checkers label and add context to manipulative or misinformative comments, including on the basis of user reports.
5. Editors swiftly remove content and ban accounts responsible for severe misinformation, hate speech, or other illegal content.

1. Hide the entire news outlet from their feed
2. Downgrade content they are not interested in
3. Report an article as misleading or false

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/Lide.cz 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.

• Links to misinformation websites are filtered automatically and cannot be posted.
• Manipulative comments are labelled and fact-checked by our editors.
• Editors swiftly remove severe misinformation, hate speech, and other illegal content, and ban accounts that repeatedly violate our policies.

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 Discussions/Lide.cz 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.

• We maintain long-term partnerships with Czech and Slovak fact-checking and media quality rating projects, including NFNZ, Konšpirátori.sk, and Atlas of Conspiracies. Further details are available on our website.
• Since August 2025, our fact-checking is subject to an additional independent review layer provided by three academic institutions — Anglo-American University, the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, and the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University — further strengthening the impartiality and objectivity of our assessments.
• During the 2025 Czech parliamentary elections, we participated in the Rapid Response System as part of our commitment to protecting the integrity of the democratic process. We received no reports, reflecting the effectiveness of our automated and editorial safeguards.
• We maintain a publicly available database of fact-checks addressing the most widely spread misinformation in the Czech online space. Prepared by our editors in collaboration with AFP, EUvsDisinfo, and other reputable fact-checking institutions, these debunks are surfaced directly within Seznam Discussions by our AI tools and editors.

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.

1. Hide entire news outlet ("Show me less content from this medium")
2. Express they are not interested in such content and downgrade it ("Article is not interesting")
3. Report article as misleading or false ("Report this article")

SLI 19.2.1

Relevant Signatories will provide aggregated information on effective user settings, such as the number of times users have actively engaged with these settings within the reporting period or over a sample representative timeframe, and clearly denote shifts in configuration patterns.

Country	No of times users actively engaged with these settings
Austria	0
Belgium	0
Bulgaria	0
Croatia	0
Cyprus	0
Czech Republic	4474401
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

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.

• The Foundation for Independent Journalism (NFNZ) provides us with their Media Rating — a rating system grounded in extensive research conducted by experts at Charles University — which we use to exclude news sources that fail to meet the required standards. The NFNZ Media Rating methodology is available here.
• In partnership with NFNZ and other independent evaluators — including Konšpirátori.sk and Nelež — we identify and flag misinformation websites, and offer users the option to blacklist such sites directly within our services. We draw on the following sitelists:
  • NFNZ disinformation sitelist
  • NFNZ junk news sitelist
  • Konšpirátori.sk misinformation sitelist
  • Nelež misinformation sitelist
• Since August 2025, our fact-checking is subject to an additional independent review provided by three academic institutions — Anglo-American University, the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, and the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University — further strengthening the impartiality and objectivity of our assessments.
• During the 2025 Czech parliamentary elections, we participated in the Rapid Response System as part of our commitment to protecting the integrity of the democratic process. We received no reports, reflecting the effectiveness of our automated and editorial safeguards.
• We closely monitor emerging misinformation narratives to counter them proactively across Seznam Discussions and other services.

SLI 21.1.1

Relevant Signatories will report through meaningful metrics on actions taken under Measure 21.1, at the Member State level. At the minimum, the metrics will include: total impressions of fact-checks; ratio of impressions of fact-checks to original impressions of the fact-checked content–or if these are not pertinent to the implementation of fact-checking on their services, other equally pertinent metrics and an explanation of why those are more adequate.

Independent fact-checkers/media rating bodies	Number of websites listed by independent rating bodies
General news websites with NFNZ rating allowed in Seznam Newsfeed	41
Disinformation and conspiratorial websites not allowed in Seznam Newsfeed (cross-section of NFNZ + Konspiratori.sk + Atlas konspiraci)	22
Junk news websites rated by NFNZ not allowed in Seznam Newsfeed	1176

SLI 21.1.2

When cooperating with independent fact-checkers to label content on their services, Relevant Signatories will report on actions taken at the Member State level and their impact, via metrics, of: number of articles published by independent fact-checkers; number of labels applied to content, such as on the basis of such articles; meaningful metrics on the impact of actions taken under Measure 21.1.1 such as the impact of said measures on user interactions with, or user re-shares of, content fact-checked as false or misleading.

• Our editors and fact-checkers operate according to comprehensive internal guidelines. Fact-checkers add context to manipulative or misinformative comments drawing on independent third-party sources, including EUvsDisinfo, AFP, and other trusted international and national outlets.
• We have compiled more than 350 regularly updated fact-checks on various issues and made them public.
• Since August 2025, our fact-checking is subject to an additional independent review provided by three academic institutions — Anglo-American University, the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, and the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University — further strengthening the impartiality and objectivity of our assessments.

Country	Nr of articles published by independent fact-checkers	Nr of labels applied to content such as on the basis of such articles
Czech Republic	350	25294

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.

• Category 1 — Blocked illegal content (based on EU Guidelines): The strictest intervention. Users are shown a hard red warning and are not permitted to click through to the target website, even if it appears in search results.
• Category 2 — Flagged misinformation (based on independent ratings by NFNZ, Konspiratori.sk, and the Atlas of Conspiracies): A red warning alerts users before they visit a known misinformation website, with an optional explanatory box detailing why the site has been flagged.
• Videos from domains flagged under either category are not displayed in search results.
• Links to misinformation websites appear in our search results only rarely. However, data indicates that users actively seeking such content are highly determined — approximately 90% dismiss the Category 2 warning and proceed to the site regardless.

• Our AI helps editors detect misinformation narrative in comments. Then, it suggests fact-checking by labelling misinformative comments and adding context boxes. 
• Our editors and fact-checkers operate according to comprehensive internal guidelines. Fact-checkers add context to manipulative or misinformative comments drawing on independent third-party sources, including EUvsDisinfo, AFP, and other trusted international and national outlets.
• We have compiled more than 350 regularly updated fact-checks on various issues and made them public.
• Since August 2025, our fact-checking is subject to an additional independent review provided by three academic institutions — Anglo-American University, the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, and the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University — further strengthening the impartiality and objectivity of our assessments.

SLI 22.1.1

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

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.

Crisis and Elections Response

Elections 2025

[Note: Signatories are requested to provide information relevant to their particular response to the threats and challenges they observed on their service(s). They ensure that the information below provides an accurate and complete report of their relevant actions. As operational responses to crisis/election situations can vary from service to service, an absence of information should not be considered a priori a shortfall in the way a particular service has responded. Impact metrics are accurate to the best of signatories’ abilities to measure them].

Threats observed or anticipated

• Fake accounts and coordinated influence operations targeting Seznam.cz services — particularly Seznam Discussions and Medium blogs — posed a risk of inauthentic amplification of political narratives and manipulation of public discourse
• Spread of false or misleading news about the election, including disinformation about candidates, the electoral process, and election results
• Misleading or false political advertising running on Seznam.cz services, with the potential to reach a large audience in the lead-up to polling day

Mitigations in place

• Our standard combination of automated tools, human editorial oversight, and user identity verification was maintained and reinforced throughout the election period. No significant influence operations or inauthentic coordinated behaviour were detected, demonstrating the effectiveness of our existing safeguards.
•  Our media services provided up-to-date, reliable information about the elections throughout the campaign period. A dedicated information box was prominently displayed on the Seznam.cz homepage, and political blogs published on Seznam Medium were housed in a dedicated section, clearly labelled as authored by verified politicians.
• False and misleading political advertising was mitigated through a mandatory human approval process for political ads. We partnered with Demagog.cz, a fellow Code signatory, to fact-check political advertisements; ads rated as false or misleading were stopped from running on our platforms. On election day itself, our teams identified fake political ads and took them down swiftly.
• We increased our fact-checking efforts during the election period, with a particular focus on the electoral process, candidates, voting procedures, and other election-relevant topics. We established cooperation with three academic institutions to provide additional layer of checks.
• As part of the broader industry response, Seznam.cz participated in the Rapid Response System. We received no reports, reflecting the robustness of our automated and editorial measures.

Policies and Terms and Conditions

Outline any changes to your policies

Policy - 50.1.1

Changes (such as newly introduced policies, edits, adaptation in scope or implementation) - 50.1.2

Rationale - 50.1.3

Political Advertising

Outline approaches pertinent to this chapter, highlighting similarities/commonalities and differences with regular enforcement.

Description of intervention - 50.3.2

• Political ads were subject to a fact-checking process in cooperation with Demagog.cz. Ads rated as false or misleading were prevented from running on Seznam.cz services.
• Our Terms & Conditions for political advertising have been updated to reflect these requirements and ensure clear compliance obligations for advertisers.

Indication of impact - 50.3.3

• The cooperation with Demagog.cz and human oversight resulted in the prevention of false or misleading political ads from reaching Seznam.cz audiences during the 2025 election period.
• Human editorial oversight identified and swiftly removed one instance of a fake advertisement mimicking a political party, preventing potentially deceptive content from influencing voters.

Description of intervention - 50.3.5

Indication of impact - 50.3.6

Integrity of Services

Outline approaches pertinent to this chapter, highlighting similarities/commonalities and differences with regular enforcement.

Description of intervention - 50.4.2

• Seznam Discussions / Lide.cz requires all users to operate under their real identity. Fake accounts are prohibited, and we apply a proportional, multi-level verification system scaled to the behaviour, reach, and potential harm associated with a given account.
• Our automated tools and human editors monitor accounts on an ongoing basis, detecting and acting upon inauthentic behaviour, coordinated amplification, and other TTPs as outlined under Commitment 14.
• A risk-based internal procedure guides editors in prioritising the most harmful or high-reach violations for swift action.

Indication of impact - 50.4.3

• No significant coordinated influence operations or inauthentic behaviour were detected on Seznam.cz services during the 2025 Czech parliamentary elections, reflecting the effectiveness of our combined automated and editorial safeguards.
• Seznam.cz participated in the Rapid Response System throughout the election period and received no reports.

Empowering Users

Outline approaches pertinent to this chapter, highlighting similarities/commonalities and differences with regular enforcement.

Specific Action applied - 50.5.1

• We significantly increased our fact-checking efforts during the election period, with a particular focus on the electoral process, candidates, voting procedures, and other election-relevant topics. An additional independent review layer was provided by our three academic partners — Anglo-American University, the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, and the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University.
• Our Newsfeed and media outlets — Seznam Zprávy and Novinky.cz — provided users with trustworthy, continuously updated news coverage throughout the campaign period and on election day, ensuring access to reliable information at every stage of the democratic process. Special boxes in Newsfeed and particular media were dedicated to trustworthy election information.

Indication of impact - 50.5.3

• Manipulative narratives and false claims about the electoral process, candidates, and voting procedures were identified, fact-checked, and contextualised for users across our services.
• Our coverage ensured that users had access to relevant, accurate information about the elections, results, and other topics crucial to informed democratic participation.
• Seznam.cz homepage and media outlets recorded record-high traffic during the election weekend, reflecting the public’s trust in our services as a reliable source of electoral information.

Empowering the Research Community

Outline approaches pertinent to this chapter, highlighting similarities/commonalities and differences with regular enforcement.

Specific Action applied - 50.6.1

• In August 2025, we established a formal cooperation with three academic institutions — Anglo-American University, the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, and the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University — to strengthen the impartiality and academic rigour of our fact-checking processes.

Description of intervention - 50.6.2

• The partnership provides an additional independent layer of academic review of our fact-checks, maximising their objectivity and credibility, and reinforcing public trust in the accuracy of our content moderation efforts.

Empowering the Fact-Checking Community

Outline approaches pertinent to this chapter, highlighting similarities/commonalities and differences with regular enforcement.

Specific Action applied - 50.7.1

• We partnered with Demagog.cz — a fellow Code signatory and leading Czech fact-checking organisation — to fact-check political advertisements submitted for display on Seznam.cz services. Ads rated as false or misleading were prevented from running.

Description of intervention - 50.7.2

• The partnership ensured that false or misleading political advertisements did not reach Seznam.cz audiences during the election period, contributing to a cleaner and more trustworthy advertising environment ahead of a critical democratic event.