The European Commission called on Google and Meta to promote materials from Russian and Belarusian independent publications - The Financial Times

The European Commission called on Google and Meta to promote Russian and Belarusian independent media higher in news aggregators than the publications of pro-government publications. This initiative was made by Deputy President of the European Commission Vera Jourova, reports The Financial Times.

According to the publication, journalists who left Belarus made a corresponding request to the European Commission. They complained that the search algorithms of Google, Meta and other tech companies take into account censorship restrictions, preventing independent publications from reaching their target audience. In addition, Google News does not index materials in the Belarusian language.

“Combating disinformation and promoting media freedom are two sides of the same coin, and we want big tech companies to do both,” Jourova told the Financial Times.

The publication's sources said that the Deputy Chairman of the European Commission discussed this topic with Google representatives. For example, in May 2023, she asked CEO Soundar Pichai to pay more attention to the failure of Russian independent media to monetize content on YouTube.

Google said the company "makes every effort to create its products and enforce its policies in a manner that does not take political views into account." Meta did not comment on this topic.

Lithuanian MEP Juozas Olekas, who deals with relations between the European Union and Belarus, told the FT that so far “large technology companies have not shown any willingness or interest in solving this problem.” According to him, banned media are considered by Google algorithms as “broken links” and demoted in search results.

In the fall of 2023, Bloomberg reported that Russian users of Android smartphones continued to receive pro-war propaganda from Google Discover, although the company tried to block it. The publication wrote, in particular, that the service still recommends publications from Komsomolskaya Pravda and Tsargrad.

In November, Google nevertheless deprived “KP” and “Tsargrad” of millions of views, the Agency found out.

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