Meta is currently under investigation from the European Commission due to concerns regarding its compliance with strict internet content rules. The commission suspects that Facebook parent company Meta has failed to effectively combat disinformation ahead of upcoming elections for the European Parliament, in violation of DSA (Digital Services Act) obligations related to deceptive advertisements, disinformation campaigns and coordinated inauthentic behavior within the EU.
The Commission also accused Meta of potentially infringing on DSA rules by demoting political content in Instagram’s and Facebook’s recommendation systems, which may have violated transparency requirements. The commission expressed concern over a lack of availability for an effective third-party real-time civil discourse monitoring tool ahead of upcoming elections to the European Parliament as well as other votes across individual member states. Meta is currently deprecating its CrowdTangle public insights tool, which enables election monitoring by researchers, journalists and civic society through visual dashboards due to a lack of publicly available data on its platforms.
Meta faces stricter controls from regulators in the region under the EU’s DSA law as it qualifies as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP). Failure to adhere to these rules could result in fines amounting up to 6% of Facebook’s global annual income or eventual restrictions leading potentially up until ban from operation within Europe. The Commission has stated that further enforcement steps, including interim measures and non-compliance decisions may be taken if deemed necessary by the commission during this investigation process.
Last week, a stress test was conducted to evaluate platforms’ preparedness for dealing with manipulative behavior in advance of elections; however, gaps were identified as well as areas that could improve cooperation between stakeholders. The Commission has not yet set any legal deadlines regarding bringing these formal proceedings to an end but stated they would continue gathering evidence from Meta by requesting further information or conducting interviews and inspections if necessary.
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