(*24*)David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
(*24*)Breton, European commissioner for the inner market, said the European Union has been seeing a rise in illegal content and disinformation on “certain platforms” following the Hamas attack on Israel. Meta owns popular social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, in addition to Threads, the corporate’s competitor for X, formerly generally known as Twitter.
(*24*)Under the EU’s newly enacted Digital Services Act, Meta is answerable for monitoring and removing illegal content like terrorist content or illegal hate speech. The corporate also has to detail its protocols for doing so. Failure to comply with the European regulations around illegal content could lead to fines value 6% of an organization’s annual revenue.
(*24*)”After the terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel on Saturday, we quickly established a special operations center staffed with experts, including fluent Hebrew and Arabic speakers, to closely monitor and respond to this rapidly evolving situation,” a Meta spokesperson told CNBC. “Our teams are working across the clock to keep our platforms secure, take motion on content that violates our policies or local law, and coordinate with third-party fact checkers within the region to limit the spread of misinformation. We’ll proceed this work as this conflict unfolds.”
(*24*)Breton shared the same letter addressed to Elon Musk, the owner of X, on Tuesday, which included a stern warning for Musk. Breton wrote that his office has “indications” that groups are spreading misinformation and “violent and terrorist” content about the Israel-Hamas conflict on the platform.
(*24*)The letter to Musk got here after quite a few researchers, news organizations and other groups documented an increase of misleading, false and questionable content on X that contributed to confusion about the events.
(*24*)Breton asked Zuckerberg to share details of how Meta is addressing deepfakes and noted that elections are also approaching in Poland, Romania, Austria, Belgium and other countries.
(*24*)”The DSA is here to protect free speech against arbitrary decisions, and at the identical time protect our residents and democracies,” Breton wrote in a post on Bluesky, one other X competitor.
(*24*)Correction: Slovakia held an election recently. An earlier version misstated the timing.