Fighting against the manipulation of information on online platforms - Report 2026

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Published on 24 March 2026

  • Balance sheet
  • Report
  • Information handling
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Arcom has been tasked by the legislator with drawing up an assessment of the means and measures implemented by the very large online platforms and search engines (TGPL-TGMR) to fight the manipulation of information on their services, in coordination with the European Commission and within the framework of the European Digital Services Act (RSN).

In the 2026 review, Arcom studied the following TGPL-TGMRs: Facebook and Instagram (Meta), Google Search, YouTube, Microsoft Bing, LinkedIn, X, TikTok, Snapchat and Wikipedia.

In it, the Authority formulates a series of notices addressed to the European Commission, platforms, national authorities and civil society organizations. They aim to strengthen the prevention, detection and mitigation of these prohibited practices and behaviors in order to fight agains the risks of online information manipulation in the context of the SNSR:

  • Recommendation 1: amplify the operationalization of the NSR and its tools (take better advantage of the tools and schemes for accessing content and audience data under the NSR; adopt guidelines in connection with the manipulation of information, in application of article 35 of the NSR);
  • Notice 2: set up survival funding mechanisms to support the work of research and fact-checkers;
  • Notice 3: structure national cooperation to strengthen collective mobilization in the face of online information manipulation (create an Observatory on the fight against information manipulation; guarantee a clear breakdown of roles for crisis and incident management);
  • Notice 4: Strengthen and extend media, information and digital literacy initiatives to new networks and audiences.

Fighting against the manipulation of information on online platforms - Report 2026

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