Seznam

Report March 2026

Submitted
Seznam.cz is a leading Czech internet company that provides various online services, such as search, news, email, maps, and e-commerce. Seznam.cz is proud to be a signatory of the EU Code of Conduct on Disinformation and to contribute to its mission of enhancing transparency, accountability, and trustworthiness of online platforms and information. We believe that our actions and achievements in 2025 demonstrate our commitment and our progress in this regard.

We are aware that the fight against disinformation and misinformation is an ongoing and evolving challenge that requires constant vigilance, adaptation, and cooperation. We are determined to continue our efforts and cooperation with other signatories, stakeholders, and authorities to uphold the Code's principles and objectives.

This report covers the following aspects of our approach to misinformation and disinformation on our services: Seznam Search, Seznam Newsfeed, and Lide.cz (formerly Seznam Discussions).

Our Commitment to Fight Falsehoods

  • We take the issue of disinformation and misinformation very seriously. Since 2023, we have a fulltime role of anti-disinformation officer/head of content moderation who coordinates all projects across services that we aim to keep trustworthy, clean of falsehoods and manipulations.
  • We have strict policies tackling impermissible manipulative behaviours and practices on our services, including the policies countering manipulative practices for AI. Our long-term goal is to promote transparency and accountability to our users and partners regarding these policies and actions.
  • We combine human editors and technologies to implement and enforce these policies, elevate authoritative information and high-quality content, promote good journalism and moderate discussions.
  • We educate users of our services by explanatory labels, fact-checks, links to credible sources, promotion of quality journalism and prioritization of quality content in our ranking systems.
  • We also provide features to easily report problematic content and personalize user experience, thus empowering them to get trustworthy information and act upon them.
  • We develop projects that increase media literacy and critical thinking skills among people of all ages.

Our Achievements and Improvements

  • We have continued to improve our detection of AI-generated content, clickbait articles, and other forms of misleading or harmful content, and we have increased our human oversight and moderation.
  • We continuously trained our AI system to detect misinformation narratives in comments and suggest relevant fact-checks to editors.
  • We have measured the impact of our fact-checking, proving that it increases perceived trustworthiness and objectivity among the public, as well as it decreases stress and negative emotions.
  • We have made all our fact-checks public for anyone to double-check it or use it.
  • We have continued to blacklist and demote misinformative and poor-quality sources on our services, while using independent external ratings. 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.
  • We have continued to flag misinformation websites and display warnings in Seznam Search.
  • On our blogging service, Seznam Medium, we have continued to keep the same editorial standards and commitments to prevent the spread of misinformation.

Key Developments in 2025

  • The 2025 Czech parliamentary elections represented a critical event for democracy and a key systemic risk requiring active mitigation. Seznam.cz participated in the Rapid Response System and received no reports, reflecting the effectiveness of our automated and editorial measures in preventing the spread of electoral disinformation.
  • 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, our teams identified fake political ads and took them down swiftly, protecting the integrity of the electoral information environment.
  • We presented our achievements and plans in the fight against disinformation at the Code plenary meeting in Brussels in June 2025.
  • In August 2025, we launched a cooperation with three renowned academic institutions — Anglo-American University, the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, and the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University — who provide an additional independent layer of review of our fact-checks to maximise impartiality and objectivity.
  • In November 2025, Seznam Discussions transitioned into Lide.cz, a fully-fledged social platform. We have maintained the same moderation standards, AI-assisted detection, human checks, and fact-checking processes throughout this transition.

We hope that this executive summary provides a clear and comprehensive overview of our actions and achievements in 2025 to fight against disinformation and misinformation on our services. We are proud of our progress, and we are determined to continue our efforts and cooperation with other signatories, stakeholders, and authorities to uphold the Code's principles and objectives.

Download PDF

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
Czech parliamentary election - October 2025
  • 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
Czech parliamentary election - October 2025
  • 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
Terms & Conditions for political advertising
Changes (such as newly introduced policies, edits, adaptation in scope or implementation) - 50.1.2
Political ads fact-checked by Demagog.cz; false or misleading ads rejected 
Rationale - 50.1.3
Prevention of fake political ads running on Seznam.cz ad services