Tech giant Google is releasing ads across five European countries to warn about misinformation ahead of June European Union (EU) parliamentary elections as part of their preventative debunking or “prebunking” initiative. The 50-second ads aim to teach people how they could be misled by politicians’ campaign commercials and communications.
“It works like a vaccine,” said Beth Goldberg, the research director of Google’s “Jigsaw” unit, an internal team that aims to “address threats to open societies” created in 2010. She said her work, which includes lectures on how to recognize manipulation techniques, “helps people to gain mental defenses proactively.”
One Google ad attacks “decontextualization,” their name for a method that withholds the full context of a speech or action in order to push incorrect narratives and “stoke fear and panic.” “It doesn’t have to be actual misinformation; you can just show someone how the manipulation works,” Goldberg said of the method.
In late March, the European Union (EU) began ordering large technology corporations to help it “secure” the June election, according to Politico. They have been asking them to increase efforts to combat disinformation, hacking, and “Russian bot campaigns.”
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As Valuetainment previously reported, the European Union initiated a probe into Elon Musk’s X to see if the self-described “free speech” platform broke its guidelines on “disinformation.” The probe is the first into any online platform conducted by European authorities since the EU’s new Digital Services Act (DSA) was introduced in 2023. The Act was designed give society what it calls “greater democratic control and oversight” over online platforms, and to mitigate “risks” such as “manipulation or disinformation.” It also claims to keep children safe and protect citizens’ fundamental rights.
Likewise, according to a report from the conservative Media Research Center (MRC), Google has interfered in elections 41 times over the last 16 years. Every interference benefitted the Democratic Party. The company “utilized its power to help push to electoral victory the most liberal candidates, regardless of party, while targeting their opponents for censorship,” in the words of the 19-page report.
Watch Media Research Center director Brent Bozell discuss Google’s election interference on the PBD Podcast below:
Shane Devine is a writer covering politics and business for VT and a regular guest on The Unusual Suspects. Follow Shane’s work here.
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