Month: October 2023

The European Union has expanded its warnings that tech companies must remove illegal content from their platforms, or risk facing severe legal penalties.

Following the militant Islamist group Hamas’ attack on Israel and Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, social media firms have seen a surge in misinformation related to the conflict, including doctored images and mislabeled videos, alongside images of graphic violence.

On Tuesday, EU industry chief Thierry Breton told Elon Musk to curb disinformation on his messaging platform X, warning it was being used to disseminate illegal content and false information in the wake of recent violence in the Middle East.

Breton issued a similar warning to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, urging the company to ensure strict compliance with European law.

In his letters to Musk and Zuckerberg, Breton said their companies had 24 hours to inform the EU how they were stopping harmful content on their platforms.

Now, the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, has sought to remind all social media companies they are legally required to prevent the spread of harmful content related to Hamas.

“Content circulating online that can be associated to Hamas qualifies as terrorist content, is illegal, and needs to be removed under both the DSA [Digital Services Act] and TCO [Terrorist Content Online Regulation,” a commission spokesperson told Reuters.

“The commission will fully apply the DSA and monitor the full implementation of the TCO. The commission urges online platforms to fully comply with EU rules.”

The recently implemented DSA requires large online platforms, including X and Meta’s Facebook, to remove illegal content and to take measures to tackle the risks to public security and civic discourse.

Any firm found in breach of the DSA faces a fine worth up to 6% of global turnover. Repeat offenders could even be banned from operating in Europe altogether.

It is unclear if Breton has sent similar messages to other social media companies designated under the DSA.
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Utah on Tuesday became the latest U.S. state to sue TikTok, alleging the company is “baiting” children into addictive and unhealthy social media habits.

TikTok lures children into hours of social media use, misrepresents the app’s safety and deceptively portrays itself as independent of its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, Utah claims in the lawsuit.

“We will not stand by while these companies fail to take adequate, meaningful action to protect our children. We will prevail in holding social media companies accountable by any means necessary,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit, which was filed in state court in Salt Lake City.

Arkansas and Indiana have filed similar lawsuits, while the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to decide whether state attempts to regulate social media platforms such as Facebook, X and TikTok violate the U.S. Constitution.

Public health concerns are cited in the Utah lawsuit. Research has shown that children who spend more than three hours a day on social media double their risk of poor mental health, including anxiety and depression, the lawsuit alleges.

“TikTok designed and employs algorithm features that spoon-feed kids endless, highly curated content from which our children struggle to disengage. TikTok designed these features to mimic a cruel slot machine that hooks kids’ attention and does not let them go,” Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said at the news conference.

The lawsuit seeks to force TikTok to change its “destructive behavior” while imposing fines and penalties to fund education efforts and otherwise address damage done to Utah children, Reyes said.

TikTok spokesperson Hilary McQuaide did not immediately return an email message seeking comment on the lawsuit.

Utah earlier this year became the first state to pass laws that aim to limit the use of social media apps such as TikTok by children and teens. The laws are set to take effect next year.

They will impose a digital curfew on people under 18, which will require minors to get parental consent to sign up for social media apps and force companies to verify the ages of all their Utah users.

They also require tech companies to give parents access to their kids’ accounts and private messages, raising concern among some child advocates about further harming children’s mental health. Depriving children of privacy, they say, could be detrimental for LGBTQ+ kids whose parents are not accepting of their identity.
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