Ever since the US presidential elections in 2016, which were marked by false information spread on social media aiming to manipulate the electorate, EU member states have been on their guard against fake news. The EU polls that will run in member states from May 23-May 26 will be a key test of whether new alert systems put in place since then have had any impact. Tech giants and especially Facebook, Google and Twitter have come under immense pressure from EU governments to react better and quicker to take down fake news spread through their sites. News media, including Agence France-Presse (AFP) have also sought to directly combat fake news, by setting up fact-checking services which can explicitly contradict false information. Meanwhile, the presence in France ahead of the EU polls of US President Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon, the founder of the right-wing US website Breitbart, has sparked tensions ahead of the polls.

Source: The Star May 21, 2019 08:26 UTC