This is an HTML version of an attachment to the Freedom of Information request 'Access to documents request: 2021-12-06 meeting between Věra Jourová and Facebook Ireland Limited'.



Ref. Ares(2022)1180918 - 17/02/2022
From:
Subject:
Meeting with 
 Meta
Platforms/Facebook
Date:
mardi 7 décembre 2021 18:05:01
Dear all,
 
I am sending you notes from yesterday`s meeting between VPJ and 
Meta Platforms/Facebook.
 
Thank you very much and wish you a great evening, 
 
On 6 of December, VPJ held an online meeting with 
Meta Platforms/Facebook. They opened up with remarks on the
most recent developments in tech and data world: the topics of algorithmic transparency,
political content on SOME platforms or regulatory frameworks such as DSA, Code of Practise on
Disinformation, GDPR or Privacy Shield II. 
 expressed his views that some of the DPAs
took the enforcement from privacy to protectionism and that their approach might be too strict.
 
On disinformation, 
 expressed   big support for stronger new Code,   mentioned
that FB is already doing a lot in this regard, incl. increasing transparency, making data available
or working with fact-checkers etc.   also announced that Meta would include its private
messaging services WhatsApp and Messenger into the framework of the new Code. This was
warmly welcomed by VPJ. Both agreed that this would need to be done with a strong message to
the users that privacy and private encrypted communication would not be infringed.
 
 further mentioned the efforts FB is making, such as publishing 12 weeks reports,
having conducted independent audits by EY, working with heavy content moderation and
content removal tools, empowering users or working on enhanced algorithms and spoke about
the results that enabled the hate speech content to be halved on the platform within the last 12-
18 months. VPJ and 
 spoke about the differences and nuances between disinformation
and misinformation. For VPJ, the most important threshold is the public harm, notably if there is
a potential to induce public violence.
 
 mentioned the troubles with legal speech that is labelled as misinformation and that
reflects the views and political arguments of people, who do not agree with the mainstream
media or opinions.   addressed the problematic narrative of elimination of misinformation in
the sense that it is constantly shifting, what is considered misinformation based on the current
winning political views.   touched the questions of censorship, of FB targeting content and also
the question of fact-checkers having their own agenda.
 
 informed that FB is currently looking into more open models of content moderation
(not so heavily focused on content removal and moderation), where users could see what fact-
checkers found and how they decided, while still seeing the original legal content, so the users
could decide for themselves. This would give them access to more information and potentially

empower them to make better decisions. They discussed the four layers of FB content policies
and its precautionary measures: content removal, reducing of content prominence (by far the
biggest volume), informing users and labelling content, and no action. They also discussed the
importance of accessibility of defined set of data to researchers/academics, so they could
prepare thorough, credible, independent and accurate analyses. VPJ talked about the need of
more detailed country level data from FB that would be more granular. 
 appreciated
the establishment of EDMO and introduced the US 2020 programme that is developing research
methodology.
 addressed the allegations of 
 that FB boosts fearsome and threating
messages using algorithms to have bigger outreach and condemned that FB would write
algorithms to deliberately spread hate.   spoke about FB providing transparency on technology
of the algorithms and that they are open to publish more data.   described the ranking
algorithms and spoke about the efforts to promote the most enriching content.   also spoke
about FB conducting surveys and research to boost and promote positive content over the
negative content.   also remarked that the advertisers themselves put pressure on FB that they
do not want to be associated with harmful post that their advertising is appearing next to.
Further, VPJ and 
 discussed the future of political content on FB. VPJ raised the issue of
anonymity of the contributors and they have talked about the danger of exercising platform
power over politics. 
 assessed that FB should not act as a referee or a democratic
watchdog, and do not intend to do the legislators job, but are ready to comply with any legal
requirements.
They also discussed the DSA proposal, in particular that the French are confident to finish up on
it fast and that it would be a massive compliance exercise for both sides. They also touched the
trend of centralising digital law enforcement, especially within the DSA one-stop-shop
framework.