The European Commission declared on Thursday via a press release that they are expecting Meta and TikTok to provide information regarding their approach to managing misinformation related to the Israel-Hamas war.They are seeking to evaluate how the two digital services are adhering to the Digital Services Act (DSA), the influential regulation for major online corporations.Recently, the commission had similarly requested data from Elon Musk's X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.Non-conformance to the DSA may result in penalties extending to 6% of a company's total annual earnings.
The European Commission on Thursday gave both Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and Chinese-owned social media app TikTok a deadline of Oct. 25 to provide information about the measures they are taking to comply with the Digital Services Act, in response to the Israel-Hamas war. This includes work to risk assess and mitigate illegal and dangerous content, particularly regarding elections, terrorist and violent content, hate speech and the protection of minors online. Last week, the commission made similar requests of Elon Musk's X social media platform.
In a statement to CNBC, a TikTok spokesperson said they had only just heard from the European Commission and a team was currently reviewing the request for information. They also said that a transparency report including more details about their measures to ensure safety for the European community would be released next week. When contacted by CNBC, Meta was not immediately available for comment.
Once Meta submits information to the commission, the regulator will evaluate their subsequent course of action.
The Commission said on Thursday that this may require the formal commencement of proceedings in accordance with Article 66 of the Digital Services Act (DSA). It added that, under Article 74(2) of the same Act, the Commission can impose penalties for the provision of inaccurate, incomplete or misleading information in response to a request for information. It stated that, in the event of Meta's and TikTok's failure to provide a response by the deadline, the Commission may opt to require the information by decision. This might result in the imposition of periodic penalty payments.Meta has been recognized as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) by the EU and, consequently, is subject to intensified scrutiny under the strict DSA regulations. In the event of a breach, it is liable to be fined up to 6% of its overall yearly revenue – a figure that could be as high as $7 billion depending on Meta's global revenue in 2022.To contain the propagation of false information during the Israel-Hamas conflict, Facebook disclosed in a blogpost this week that it had taken down or marked as upsetting over 795,000 Hebrew and Arabic posts within three days of 7 October 2020. Additionally, it removed seven times the number of posts each day for violating its policy on hazardous individuals and organizations.On Wednesday, it went a step further and announced that, in order to further reduce the spread of malicious material related to the war, it had temporarily changed the comment setting on newly created posts by people in the area to friends or established followers only.TikTok, on the other hand, has increased its Arabic and Hebrew-speaking content moderators to review content concerning the conflict, and enhanced its automated systems to detect and remove violent and graphic content in real-time, thus protecting its moderators and community members from being exposed to it.
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