Commission moves from reports to direct dialogues with major platforms on disinformation

Google, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok have published the second set of reports following the integration of the Code of Practice on Disinformation into the Digital Services Act. After the first full year of reporting under the new framework, the Commission says it will open dialogues with all signatory very large online platforms and search engines to examine the level of commitments undertaken and how they are being applied.

The European Commission will open dialogues with the major online platforms and search engines participating in the Code of Practice on Disinformation, following the publication of a new set of reports completing the first year of monitoring since the Code was integrated into the Digital Services Act (DSA) framework. The reports submitted by providers such as Google, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok cover the period from 1 January to 30 June 2026 and describe the measures applied against disinformation risks, including in the context of the war in Ukraine and safeguarding election integrity.

In brief

1.Signatory platforms have published the second set of reports since the Code on Disinformation became a code of conduct under the DSA.

2.The current reports cover the period from 1 January to 30 June 2026 and include data on policies, tools, partnerships, crises and election integrity.

3.After accumulating a full year of reporting, the Commission will open dialogues with all signatory very large online platforms and search engines.

4.The dialogues will examine both the level of commitments undertaken by each service and their effective implementation.

5.Opening these dialogues does not automatically mean launching a DSA investigation or establishing a violation.

The important change is not the publication of new reports itself. Platforms have been reporting periodically for several years under the Code on Disinformation. The novelty is the status these commitments have had since 1 July 2025, when the Code was formally integrated into the architecture of the Digital Services Act. From that moment, compliance with the commitments undertaken through the Code may be used as a relevant benchmark when the Commission analyses how a very large online platform manages the systemic risks provided for by the DSA.

The Code remains built on commitments undertaken by signatories, and companies are not required to subscribe to every available measure. However, once a very large online platform chooses certain commitments and declares that it applies them, the difference between what it promises and what it does becomes relevant to assessing its compliance. This is one of the reasons why the Commission now wants to discuss separately with each of the major participating services the level of subscription and concrete implementation.

The half-yearly reports provide the raw material for this analysis. They include information on policies and tools developed by platforms, cooperation with fact-checkers and other organisations, measures to limit economic incentives associated with disinformation, and interventions related to periods of heightened risk. The current round also contains chapters dedicated to ongoing crises, especially the war in Ukraine, as well as actions concerning the integrity of electoral processes.

The Commission does not claim, by publishing the reports, that all these measures are sufficient. The reports are largely provided by the signatories themselves and must be distinguished from the authority's assessment of their effectiveness. Integrating the Code into the DSA added precisely an additional level of verification: adherence to the commitments is subject to an independent annual audit, and performance may be examined in the context of obligations concerning the assessment and mitigation of systemic risks.

For very large online platforms and very large online search engines, this connection with the DSA is essential. Services in these categories, defined by reaching the threshold of at least 45 million monthly active users in the EU, must identify and mitigate systemic risks arising from their operation. These risks may include effects on civic discourse, electoral processes, public security and other interests protected by the regulation.

The Code seeks to turn these general obligations into more concrete commitments regarding the problem of disinformation. It covers areas such as demonetisation of content and actors that benefit financially from disinformation, transparency of political advertising, researchers' access to information, fact-checking, user tools and cooperation during electoral periods.

This architecture also explains why the dialogues announced by the Commission should not be confused with formal DSA enforcement procedures. A dialogue may identify areas where commitments are insufficient, where the platform does not participate in certain measures, or where implementation needs to be improved. A formal investigation, however, involves a different legal stage and must be announced as such by the Commission.

After the first six months of the Code operating in its new form, platforms reported in March on the period from July to December 2025. The data now published for the first half of 2026 completes, for the first time, two consecutive six-month periods under the DSA regime. The Commission explicitly says that this full year of information allows it to begin dialogues on the level of commitment of each signatory VLOP or VLOSE.

Differences between services may be relevant. The Code does not assume that Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google Search, TikTok, Bing or LinkedIn operate identically, nor that they expose users to the same mechanisms for the propagation of information. A search engine, a video platform and a social network have different architectures, and the appropriate measures for reducing risk may consequently differ.

The assessment concerns more than the existence of written rules. A service may have a policy against certain coordinated behaviours or an agreement with fact-checkers, but the supervisory question is the extent to which the measure works at platform scale, in multiple languages and across all relevant Member States. It is precisely this distance between declared policy, implementation and outcome that the reporting system seeks to make more visible.

The linguistic dimension is important for the EU. Measures developed for large markets or for English-language content do not automatically produce the same results in languages with fewer resources available for moderation, fact-checking or research. The Code therefore includes indicators and reporting that seek to enable assessments at Member State level, not only in aggregate for the Union as a whole.

Election protection remains one of the most sensitive components of the system. The Code provides for cooperation between platforms, civil society and fact-checkers during electoral periods and includes a rapid response mechanism. The current reports describe the measures taken by platforms in this area, but their existence should not automatically be interpreted as independent confirmation that all electoral risks have been neutralised.

The same principle applies to the war in Ukraine. Platforms describe the actions taken in the context of the crisis, but the Commission does not, by simply publishing these self-reports, turn them into its own conclusions regarding their effectiveness. The next stage is precisely to assess the differences between commitments, implementation, reported data and the broader requirements of the DSA.

The Code has thus changed from a predominantly voluntary mechanism of cooperation into an element of the European system for supervising platforms. Participation continues to involve commitments undertaken by companies, but these commitments now operate within legislation that allows the Commission to request risk assessments, verify mitigation measures and, separately from the Code, open proceedings when it suspects a breach of the Digital Services Act.

The dialogues announced for the next stage will show how much this transformation matters in practice. After two reporting semesters under the new regime, the discussion is no longer only about what platforms say they have done against disinformation. The Commission is beginning to examine what commitments each service has undertaken, how they are implemented and whether differences between platforms leave areas insufficiently covered.

https://2eu.brussels/ro/news/comisia-trece-de-la-rapoarte-la-dialoguri-directe-cu-marile-platforme-privind-dezinformarea