According to a document seen by Reuters, European Commissionrepresenting the executive branch of the European Union, plans to enforce rules that could imposing heavy fines on companies that do not properly address the fight against false accounts and issues deepfakesthose counterfeits based on in-depth learning that sometimes disguise themselves as genuine material to slander or attribute a false quote to a person.

Technology companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter will have to take steps to fight deepfakes and fake accounts on their own platforms if they don’t want to end up facing heavy fines, or at least that an updated European Union Code for Combating Disinformation within the community body, which would be published on Thursday this week.

The Code, introduced on a voluntary basis in 2018, will become a system of co-regulation with shared responsibilities between regulators and signatories. Its update describes in detail examples of manipulative behavior such as deepfakes and fake accounts that will have to be dealt with by code signatories.

The document, which was seen by the Reuters agency, allegedly says so “The relevant signatories shall adopt, enforce and implement clear principles regarding unacceptable manipulative behavior and practices in their services, based on the latest evidence of behavior and tactics, techniques and practices (TTPs) used by malicious actors.”.

In addition to your update the code of conduct will become part of the digital services law Of the European Union, which was agreed this year by the 27 member states of the Community body to combat misinformation. Companies that sign the code of good practice will have six months to take action against it deepfakesadvertising with misinformation and false accounts and Failure to comply with the acquired obligations may result in a fine of up to 6% of their worldwide turnover. Companies will also need to ensure greater transparency in political advertising.

In addition to fighting deepfakes and misinformation through the media, which we have seen in the last few years, the new rules would focus on combating misinformation coming from pro-Russian channels as a result of the invasion of Ukraine.

The European Union, through its executive power, seems to have made the fight against misinformation one of its priorities and will therefore not hesitate to demand maximum from companies to carry out their mission properly.

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