Given the escalation of the war conflict between Israel and Gaza, which today marks one week, social networks have led to a chaotic situation of misinformation, fake videos and accounts, and violent or sensational content organized by a crazed algorithm that has become a more danger within a war scenario. An even more worrying panorama due to the recent emergence of Artificial Intelligence.
This entire scenario has led the European Commission (EC) to take action on the matter. On Thursday, it warned the Chinese social network TikTok of containing “terrorist propaganda” after the Hamas attack on Israel last Saturday and asked it to take measures to eliminate it, taking into account that it is a platform widely used by minors.
The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, responsible for controlling digital companies in the EU, wrote a letter to the CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, asking him to explain within 24 hours what measures he will adopt, just as he has demanded from the social network X (formerly Twitter) and Meta, parent company of Instagram and Facebook.
“Given that many users, particularly minors, turn to their platform as a news source, reliable sources must be properly differentiated from terrorist propaganda,” Breton said. And he pointed out the “special obligation” that Shou Zi Chew has to protect children and adolescents “from violent content depicting hostage-taking and other graphic videos that are reported to be circulating on its platform,” in reference to the Israeli citizens that Hamas has captured, whom it threatens to kill if Israel continues bombing Gaza.
Breton sent a similar letter to X owner Elon Musk on Tuesday. Also the day before, he sent another letter to the CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, warning him that false news was being disseminated on this network after the Hamas attack, although he avoided explicitly labeling that content as "terrorist."
The commissioner has asked all of them to adopt measures based on the digital services law, which forces platforms to quickly eliminate illegal content on the internet. The law allows the Commission to open an investigation against companies if it has doubts that they are breaching the regulations and, if they do not remove illegal content voluntarily, it could apply precautionary measures.
Measures that “would not go beyond what is necessary to prevent serious damage” and that would be limited in time, although they could be renewed “if necessary and appropriate,” as explained today by a spokesperson for the Community Executive.
If at the end of the investigation, they continue to fail to comply with European regulations, Brussels could impose a fine of up to 6% of their annual global turnover and, as a measure of last resort, could ask judicial authorities to ban the platforms in the EU. .
