EU Urges Google CEO Sundar Pichai To Take Action Against Misinformation On YouTube Regarding Israel-Hamas Conflict

European Commissioner Thierry Breton has sent a letter to Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai reminding them of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which aims to prevent the sharing of illegal content and disinformation related to the Israel-Hamas war on YouTube.

In a letter also addressed to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, Breton said that following the terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel, “we are seeing illegal content and disinformation spread in the EU through certain platforms”.

“I would like to remind you that you have a special responsibility to protect the millions of children and young people using your platforms in the EU from violent content depicting hostage-taking and other graphic videos,” the commissioner said late on Friday.

It means taking appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, safety and security for minors, he added.

Breton has already warned X, Meta and TikTok to remove terrorist propaganda and manipulated content such as repurposed videos or clickbait from their respective platforms.

He told Pichai that “when you receive reports of illegal content in the EU, you must act in a timely, diligent and objective manner and take action to remove the relevant content when warranted”.

“Due to the urgency, I also expect you to liaise with the relevant law enforcement authorities and Europol and ensure that you respond to their requests promptly,” Breton said.

In connection with the election, he told Pichai that the DSA requires that the risk of verifying fake and manipulated images and facts created to influence the election be taken extremely seriously in mitigation measures.

“I am asking you to inform my team of the detailed measures you have taken to reduce deep counterfeiting, also in light of the upcoming elections in Poland, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Belgium, Croatia, Romania and Austria, as well as the European Parliament elections,” said Breton.

“As you know, once a potential investigation is opened and non-compliance is identified, sanctions may be imposed,” he added.

Earlier, Meta said that following the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and Israel’s response in Gaza, “teams of experts from across our company have been working around the clock to monitor our platforms while protecting people’s ability to use our apps to shed light on important developments on the ground.”

“We removed or flagged as offensive over the next three days on October 7, more than 795,000 pieces of content in Hebrew and Arabic for violating these policies,” the social network said in a blog post.

Compared to two months ago, in the three days following Oct. 7, “we’ve removed seven times more content every day because it violates our policy on dangerous organizations and individuals in Hebrew and Arabic alone,” Meta added.