In a statement, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, reported that it is investigating X’s compliance with the new Digital Services Law, which regulates the actions of the digital platforms in the European bloc.
The note mentions the receipt of indications “relative to the alleged transmission of illicit content” in X after the Hamas attack on Israeli territory last Saturday.
In this way, the Commission formally presented to X a document 40 pages containing specific questions about the operation of the platform.
With these tools, the Commission intends to determine if the social network allowed the spread of disinformation about what happened on Saturday in the territory of Israel.
X’s defense of the EU investigation
For its part, the social network X reported today that it deleted or labeled “tens of thousands” of content related to the attack by the Islamist resistance movement. Hamas In Israel.
“Since the terrorist attacks against Israel we have taken steps to label or remove tens of thousands of content“said today the executive director of X, Linda Yaccarino, in response to criticism from the European Union (EU), reported the AFP news agency.
He also said that They removed posts that involved “violent speech, media manipulation, and violent images.”
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The EU warning against X, Meta and TikTok
The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, had sent a letter this week to both Elon Musk, owner of Mark Zuckerberg, president and CEO of Goal, which comprises Facebook and instagram, to warn them about the spread of “illegal content and disinformation” in their platforms about the attacks of the Palestinian movement Hamas in Israel.
In that same letter, Breton granted to Musk a period of 24 hours to detail the measures taken in X to stop the dissemination of violent images, disinformation and illegal content.
Now, X has until October 18 to respond to the most urgent questions, and until October 31 for less pressing information.
Breton, warned this Wednesday Mark Zuckerberg due to the increase in information manipulated in Meta, responsible for the social networks Facebook and Instagram.
“We have been made aware of reports of a significant number of deepfakes and manipulated content that circulated on its platform and some that still appear online,” Breton said in his letter.
Therefore, he invited Zuckerberg “to inform my team without delay about the details of the measures you have taken to mitigate these deepfakes.”
Breton also sent a letter to the CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew to warn you about the content. “Given that your platform is widely used by children and teenagers, you have a particular obligation to protect them from violent content depicting hostage-taking and other videos,” she said.
What does the Digital Services Law
According to the statement, the Commission now has legal powers “to demand more information from X, to verify the correct implementation” of the Digital Services Law.
In August this year, the EU passed legislation banning illegal online content under threat of fines that can reach up to 6% of a company’s global turnover.
The Digital Services Law (LSD) regulates the 19 main social networks, commerce sites and search enginesamong them Google, YouTube, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, X (ex-Twitter) or TikTok.
Platforms must propose to Internet users a tool to easily flag illegal content, as defined by national laws or European texts, and quickly remove it.
They must also undergo a independent annual audit to verify correct compliance with its obligations. Commerce sites must be able to track sellers to reduce scams.
Its algorithms are also under scrutiny: platforms They must explain how their recommendation systems work and offer alternatives without personalization.
Source: Ambito
