”EBU” : European Bureau of Uninformation !

The advent of the Ministry of Truth.

Translated from The Epoch Times by GERMAIN DE LUPIAC

Spotlight, une réponse européenne à la guerre informationnelle

While France is targeted by Russian digital influence operations, Europe is organized by launching its own fact checking network to combat online disinformation.

Called "Spotlight", this verification network includes 17 public media and joined the French project "Alliance for facts", launched in February 2025 by Radio France, in partnership with France Télévisions, France Médias Monde, TV5 Monde and the National Audiovisual Institute (INA).

According to Liz Corbin, information director of the European Union of Radio-Television (in English European Broadcasting Union, EBU) at the origin of the initiative, "we are faced with an increasing crisis of inaccurate, false and synthetic information which test our certainty of truth and reality".

The announcement of the creation of Spotlight comes after Meta's decision at the start of the year to stop its Fact-Checking program for the benefit of the community notes, when it was funding more than 80 media around the world.

Spotlight: a European initiative to combat disinformation

The European Union of Radio-Television (UER) launched on April 11 a network of verification of facts to combat disinformation, called Spotlight. The UER is the world's leading world media alliance, the 113 members of which operate nearly 2,000 television, radio and websites in 56 countries, receiving an audience of more than a billion people.

France is represented there with Arte, France Médias Monde (France 24 and RFI), TV5 Monde, Radio France and the France Télévisions group, whose president Delphine Ernotte assumed in December 2024 a militant line in favor of inclusion, feminism and the environmental transition, according to Boulevard Voltaire.

"Public service media are unique to be a haven of truth in an ocean of false information and uncertainties," said Florent Latrive, Deputy Director of Information for Radio France, following the creation of Spotlight, according to Franceinfo.

The project, which is not directly related to the European Union, wants to provide European public service media with the tools necessary to combat false information and promote reliable information. Today, it brings together 18 public broadcasters, including ORF (Austria), RTBF (Belgium), Czech Television (Czech Republic), Yle (Finland), ZDF (Germany), BBC (United Kingdom) and Radio-Canada, under the aegis of Eurovision News, the UERS information branch.

End of Meta's Fact-Checking: the new American vision of freedom of expression

META announced in early January to put an end to its program to verify the facts by replacing it with community notes, similar to the system used by the social network platform X, specifying that this would not concern the European Union (EU) at the moment.

The Meta fact verification program was launched after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, with third -party companies and media responsible for targeting certain subjects and proposing deletions or posts.

But in early 2025, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it was "time to return to our roots in terms of freedom of expression on Facebook and Instagram". The facts of facts "are too politically oriented and destroyed more confidence than they have created," he said.

Meta, who owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp, also simplifies her content policies by removing rules related to subjects such as immigration and gender question.

"What started as a movement aimed at being more inclusive has been used more and more to silence opinions and exclude people who have different ideas. And it went too far, "said Mark Zuckerberg.

In France, the partners of the Meta Fact-Checking program are AFP, Le Monde, 20 Minutes and France 24. According to a 2023 study by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), the META program constituted "important sources of income" for an international network of 137 Fact-Checking organizations around the world.

Europe's response to Meta

In response to the changes made by Meta, the European Commission recalled its position on the factors of facts and the potential consequences of the non-compliance of Digital Services Act (DSA), applying in the EU.

The spokesman for the European Commission, Thomas Régnier, told Epoiel to Epoch Times that in the EU, the facts work on the basis of "high ethical and professional standards, which guarantee their independence" and that independent verification of facts can be considered as an effective means of "mitigating systemic risks" arising from "disinformation". "In other words, we absolutely refute any allegation of censorship on our part," according to Paula Pinho, chief spokesperson for the European Commission.

The human rights commissioner of the Council of Europe Michael O’Flaherty said that the end of the verification of Meta's facts was going to have "negative consequences for human rights" and wanted to ensure that internet intermediaries would attenuate "the systemic risks of disinformation and uncontrolled discourse".

The new Spotlight project is a response to this upcoming Meta Fact-Checking in Europe. Europe currently represents a particular environment for digital companies, which must comply with the DSA moderation rules.

The European vision of freedom of expression

Mark Zuckerberg described Europe as a place as "censorship" due to the DSA which regulates online content. "Europe has an increasing number of laws that institutionalize censorship and make it difficult to set up innovative projects," he said.

The DSA is a European regulation voted in October 2022 which governs the obligations of the digital services. Social media platforms are notably required to delete information considered to be disinformation and take other specific measures to remedy it, under penalty of colossal fines of 6 % of their turnover.

According to Norman Lewis, guest researcher of the MCC Brussels MCC reflection group, former director of PWC and director of technological research at Orange UK, quoted in a 2024 report, the EU institutionalized laws against hate speech and disinformation. This results in a "fundamental attack on freedom of expression and democracy in Europe", as soon as hate speech or disinformation can concern different political opinions of national or European policies in place.

"The problem is that all this is opaque," deplores Norman Lewis. The public does not access this data to see which content exactly [has been deleted]. It can be very dangerous, it can be violent sexual abuse or calls for violence. But it can also be legitimate content, for example the opposition to the Green Deal, to EU immigration policies or gender identity, "he continued.

According to him, the announcement of Mark Zuckerberg concerning "censorship, the intention [of Meta] to remove the verifiers of facts" defies the European Union. “The rest of the events remains to be seen. But there is no doubt that freedom of expression or censorship will become a geopolitical question, especially in relations between the Trump and the EU administration, "he added.

Finally, it will be necessary to ensure that the remedy for the verification of European facts is not worse than evil, and that the result is not a freedom of expression limited to the editorial line of the media or public service agencies, themselves supervised by the ideological line of the government in place.