"Google rejects EU fact-checking commitments for Search and YouTube", 17 January 2025

Google has notified the European Union that it won’t integrate work from fact-checking organizations into Search or YouTube, ahead of the bloc’s plans to expand disinformation laws. Google had previously signed a set of voluntary commitments that the EU introduced in 2022 to reduce the impact of online disinformation, which are in the process of being formalized into law under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The pushback comes as the emboldened leaders of US tech companies, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, have been courting President-elect Donald Trump, with Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg urging him directly to combat EU regulatory enforcement.

In a letter written to the European Commission’s content and technology czar Renate Nikolay seen by Axios, Google’s global affairs president Kent Walker affirmed that Google won’t commit to the fact-checking requirement as it “simply isn’t appropriate or effective for our services.” Google will also “pull out of all fact-checking commitments in the Code” before the rules become law in the DSA Code of Conduct, according to Walker.

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Fact-checking isn’t currently included as part of Google’s content moderation practices. The company objected to some of the code’s requirements in its agreement, saying that “Search and YouTube will endeavour to reach agreements with fact checking organizations in line with this measure, but services will not have complete control over this process.” 

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It’s unclear whether all of the code’s requirements will be formalized into official rules under the DSA — EU lawmakers have been in discussions with signatories regarding which commitments they will agree to follow. The Commission has yet to announce when the code will officially become law...