EU Investigates Google, Twitter, and Facebook as New Regulations Take Effect

Starting from Friday, Meta Platforms Inc., Google, and X (previously known as Twitter) will be required to comply with stringent content moderation regulations in the European Union. These regulations will be legally enforceable under a new law that governs social media platforms.

Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Thursday it is making several changes to comply with EU digital services laws, including expanding access to online ad targeting data and disclosing more about its content monitoring practices on services such as Google Search. It also adds risk analysis to its largest platforms.

Last spring, the EU designated 19 companies as “very large online platforms” and “very large online search engines,” meaning they had more than 45 million monthly users.

These platforms must now comply with rules that include restrictions on targeting ads to minors and using sensitive information such as race or gender to serve ads. They must also have a sufficient number of content moderators in each EU language.

Companies must submit risk assessments to the European Commission, which explain how they reduce the impact of harmful content on their platforms. Failure to do so can result in fines of up to 6 percent of the company’s annual income or even a ban on operations.

Nick Clegg, Meta’s head of global affairs, said the company has introduced new steps on Facebook and Instagram, including stopping targeting ads to teenagers based on their app activity.

“It is crucial that the DSA now maintains its pre-eminence over existing and new national laws to safeguard the clarity it has created for services, maintain consistency in the accountability of technology companies and preserve the harmonious way people experience our platform across the region,” Clegg wrote in a blog post.

No “free pass”

EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton recently met with the heads of Twitter, Meta and TikTok to discuss the rules. He warned these companies that they needed to do more to get enough content moderators in place, especially before the Slovak elections.

“Europe is now effectively the first jurisdiction in the world where online platforms no longer benefit from a ‘free pass’ and set their own rules,” Breton said in a statement on Wednesday. “They are now regulated entities in the same way as financial institutions.”

Privacy and civil society advocates have been baffled by the companies so far, with several calling for more ambitious plans to release data to nonprofit groups and outside researchers.

“It’s shocking that none of them have made any progress in meeting their obligations to open their public records to researchers, including civil society watchdogs,” said Luca Nicotra, campaign director at Avaaz, a non-profit group that monitors social media. “Thierry Breton must immediately send a clear message to Silicon Valley that this is unacceptable and that sanctions will follow.”

Focus on Musk

The EU is focused on billionaire Elon Musk’s X platform, which is trying to use artificial intelligence and user feedback through its Community Notes program to police content. Breton said that while such steps are promising, the company needs to prove that these methods are robust enough to meet DSA regulations.

Musk “made it very clear that he will follow our orders,” Breton said on Twitter after a June stress test in Silicon Valley. “But there is still work to be done.”

The EU warns that Twitter must increase resources before the elections

TikTok was also not yet compliant after the mid-July stress test. Since then, parent company Bytedance Inc. announced that it will soon update TikTok to comply with the new rules, including allowing users to report illegal content and select a feed that is not personalized.

Meta could do better. The company has more than 1,000 employees working on DSA compliance, and he presented Breton and his team with “a lot of information” about compliance when the commissioner visited the company in June. He warned CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the company needs to work harder to fight Russian disinformation, especially in Eastern Europe about the war in Ukraine.

While most of the DSA’s political and media attention has focused on how social media platforms police content, legal action has focused on new rules for digital marketplaces, with lawsuits filed against the commission by Amazon.com Inc. and German retailer Zalando SE. new rules.

Neither company believes it should be subject to new rules. Amazon said in a statement this summer that the commission’s criteria are discriminatory and that its marketplace is not a dominant retailer in any EU country where it operates. Similarly, Zalando said the commission misinterpreted its numbers and failed to recognize its role as a retailer.

Amazon is fighting “discriminatory” online content rules in the EU

Large online companies are also preparing for another landmark EU law that will come into effect soon. The Digital Market Act targets their business practices, including new restrictions on combining personal data between services, interoperability requirements for online communication systems, and allowing the use of third-party payment systems and app stores.

On September 6, the EU will publish a list of companies to which the new rules apply.