Representatives of the European Union's main political coalitions on Tuesday signed a pledge not to spread disinformation or deepfakes during the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament in June.
"Elections should be a competition of ideas and opinions, not of dirty manipulative methods," European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová said at the signing ceremony in Brussels.
The signatories commit to refrain from from making or using "falsified, fabricated, doxed or stolen data" or "any type of deceptive content using audio, images or video," among other things.
There has been growing anxiety about disinformation in the EU for several years, particularly as tensions have risen with Russia, which has been accused of trying to destabilize elections in the West using targeted disinformation and propaganda.
The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (AI), which can create increasingly convincing fake images and videos, has further stoked the concerns.
The signatories represent six of the parliament's seven broad coalitions of national political parties including two conservative groups, social democrats, liberals, greens and the radical left.
The one remaining right-wing nationalist group, called Identity and Democracy (ID), has also indicated that it intends to sign, a commission press release said.
An ID official told dpa that the party is indeed ready to sign, and that practical constraints alone - not political objections - prevented it from sending an authorized representative to sign at the ceremony on Tuesday. A less senior ID representative attended the ceremony as an observer.
The signatories pledged to "ensure an ethical and transparent use of campaign tools and technologies, including artificial intelligence."
The code of conduct also commits them not to use "fake accounts or automatic bots to manipulate voter opinions," as well as "content created and disseminated by actors from outside the EU" that are "seeking to erode European values and principles."
The pledge allows the use of AI-generated content when it's clearly labelled - for example with a watermark.
A separate code of conduct on disinformation was signed by the major online platforms in 2022. X - formerly known as Twitter - withdrew from the code in 2023.
