Brussels has lit the fuse. This Friday, Meta – owner of and Instagram – warned that they are exposed to million-dollar fines of up to 6% of their annual global turnover for having allegedly failed to comply with the transparency obligations to which they are subject under the European Digital Services Law (DSA).
of having prevented accredited researchers from being able to access their internal data to verify whether established standards were complied with.
As indicated by the European Commission, they believe that TikTok and Meta have developed procedures and tools whose use is “cumbersome.” Something that makes only data accessible”partial or unreliable“.
Brussels believes that Meta has made it difficult for users of its Instagram and Facebook networks to report illegal content, according to the words of Henna Virkkunen, vice president of the Community Executive in charge of Technological Sovereignty.
“We have also preliminarily found that Meta, in the case of both Instagram and Facebook, fails to comply with its obligations to provide users with simple mechanisms to report illegal content and enable them to effectively challenge content moderation decisions“, he assured.
Henna Virkkunen has justified that “our democracies are based on trust” and defends that “this means that platforms must empower users, respect their rights and open their systems to scrutiny“.
The vice president of the European Commission has highlighted that the Digital Services Law “makes it an obligation, not an option.” “We ensure that platforms are accountable for their services, as required by EU legislation, both before users and before society“he said in a statement.
According to data provided by Brussels, since April 2024 Meta has made more than 918 million content moderation decisions affecting European users, of which around 68 million have been appealed by these users thanks to the framework offered by the DSA. The success rate in appeals is around 31% (21 million contents) and the company had to return the material initially removed, sources in Brussels emphasize.
