With the European elections just around the corner on June 9th, Brussels is increasing surveillance to prevent fake news from affecting the polls. In this context, the European Commission has opened an investigation against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, suspecting that they have not implemented the necessary measures to prevent misinformation campaigns on both social networks. This situation has been exploited by “Russian interference campaigns,” according to EU sources.
“Today we have opened a procedure against Meta for suspicions of violating the Digital Services Act (DSA) obligations to protect the integrity of elections,” said Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton. The Frenchman listed the reasons against the US group: “inadequate moderation of advertising, used for scams and foreign interference,” “inadequate access to data to monitor elections,” and non-compliance “with the tool to flag illegal content.”
Specifically, the European Commission believes that Mark Zuckerberg’s company does not comply with policies to prevent deceptive advertising and misinformation campaigns on the platform. The case involves the lack of a tool to track citizens’ speech and elections in light of the June elections, as well as the removal of the real-time public information tool CrowdTangle without providing a substitute.
“Misleading advertising is a risk to our online debate and, ultimately, to our rights as consumers and citizens. We suspect that Meta’s moderation is insufficient, lacking transparency in advertisements and content moderation procedures,” added European Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager.
The EU’s procedure against the tech giant will focus on four aspects: deceptive advertising and misinformation, visibility of political content, lack of a tool to monitor citizens’ speech, and a tool to detect illegal content.
Regarding deceptive advertising and misinformation, Brussels suspects that Meta is not fulfilling its responsibility to detect and address deceptive advertising and misinformation. Thus, it considers the proliferation of these contents to pose a risk to citizen discourse, electoral processes, and fundamental rights.
Regarding the identification of political content, the European Commission believes that the group is not transparent, evaluating and mitigating risks in civic discourse in electoral processes in the content displayed in Facebook and Instagram publication walls.
The lack of a tool to monitor citizens’ speech in real-time on platforms for the European elections and the removal of CrowdTangle without a substitute tool is another element that the European Commission will investigate. The US group has more than 250 million monthly active users in the EU, so Brussels gives Meta a five-day deadline to explain what actions it will take to ensure content monitoring on its platforms. The Commission has reserved the right to take measures if these actions are insufficient.
Finally, regarding the mechanism to flag illegal content, the European Commission suspects that it does not comply with the Digital Services Act requirements. Specifically, the tool does not meet the requirement to be easily accessible and intuitive to use. At the same time, the EU considers that Meta has not established an efficient internal system for processing complaints against content moderation decisions.
If these violations are proven, they would constitute breaches of the Digital Services Act. The Commission will now initiate an in-depth investigation, the duration of which will depend on the complexity of the case. In this process, the tech giant can present solutions to meet the demands of the EU.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen emphasized that “major digital platforms must live up to their obligations and dedicate sufficient resources to this issue, and today’s decision demonstrates that we take compliance seriously,” regarding the protection of the democratic process.
Facebook and Instagram were designated as major online platforms under the Digital Services Act, in April of last year, considering that both social networks have more than 45 million monthly active users in the EU. By the end of August 2023, Facebook and Instagram were supposed to start complying with a series of obligations under EU regulations that apply to all online intermediaries in the EU since last February.
