The European Commission announced this Monday a formal procedure against X (formerly Twitter) for the alleged dissemination of illegal content related to the Middle East conflict, to demonstrate whether there were violations of the new Digital Services Law.
“The European Commission has launched a formal procedure to assess whether X may have violated the Digital Services Act in areas related to risk management, content moderation, dark patterns, advertising transparency and researcher access data “says Brussels in a statement released this Monday.
Based on a preliminary investigation and on the data mentioned in the Israel”.
Given that the new Digital Services Law obliges platforms to act against this type of illicit content, and must moderate the content and combat manipulation, the institution will now carry out an “in-depth and priority investigation” into the measures taken.
Specifically, Brussels will collect additional evidence and information and, if faults are proven, it may sanction X.
Companies that do not comply with this new legislation may face fines proportional to their size, with larger companies subject to penalties of up to 6% of their global turnover.
With 112 million monthly active users in the EU, X is the first target of formal procedures under the new legislation.
Since the end of last August and after a period of adaptation, the EU has become the first jurisdiction in the world with rules for digital platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, which will now be obliged to remove illegal content.
These obligations are due to the entry into force this Monday of the Digital Services Law in the EU, in whose scope the Commission defined 19 large online platforms, with 45 million monthly active users, which must comply with the new rules. , including AliExpress, Amazon, Apple AppStore, Booking.com, Facebook, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube and Zalando.
They add two very large search engines, such as Bing and the Google search tool.
The new Digital Services Law was created to protect the fundamental rights of online users and has become unprecedented legislation for the digital space that holds platforms responsible for illegal and harmful content, specifically misinformation.
Source: TSF
