Meta Platforms Facebook and Instagram have failed to tackle disinformation and deceptive advertising in the run-up to European Parliament elections, the European Commission said on Tuesday as it opened an investigation into suspected breaches of EU online content rules.
The move by EU tech regulators came amid concerns about Russia, China and Iran as potential sources of disinformation, but also inside the EU, with some political parties and organizations seeking to attract voters.
The Digital Services Act which kicked in last year requires Big Tech to do more to counter illegal and harmful content on their platforms or risk fines of as much as 6% of their global annual turnover. The EU investigation will focus in particular on a Russia-based influence operation network dubbed Doppelganger which clones authentic media and was exposed by Meta in 2022, people familiar with the matter said. Meta says it has blocked tens of thousands of links connected to it.
"We suspect that Meta's moderation is insufficient, that it lacks transparency of advertisements and content moderation procedures," EU digital chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement. "So today, we have opened proceedings against Meta to assess their compliance with the Digital Services Act," she said.
Meta, which has more than 250 million monthly active users in the European Union, defended its risk mitigation process. The Commission said it suspects that Meta does not comply with DSA obligations related to addressing the dissemination of deceptive advertisements, disinformation campaigns and coordinated inauthentic behavior in the EU.
It also singled out the non-availability of an effective third-party real-time civic discourse and election-monitoring tool ahead of the elections to the European Parliament. The Commission also cited concerns about Meta's phasing out of its disinformation tracking Crowd Tangle without an adequate replacement. Meta has five working days to inform the EU about remedial actions taken to address the concerns.
.png)
The opinions posted here do not belong to 🔰www.indiansdaily.com. The author is solely responsible for the opinions.
As per the IT policy of the Central Government, insults against an individual, community, religion or country, defamatory and inflammatory remarks, obscene and vulgar language are punishable offenses. Legal action will be taken for such expressions of opinion.