An investigation by EU regulators has found that TikTok and Meta violate EU rules on illegal or harmful online content.
The European Commission (EC) said on Friday that preliminary findings showed that both companies were not complying with Digital Services Act (DSA) rules that require researchers to be given adequate access to public data.
The commission said Meta and TikTok’s procedures and tools to request access to public data are “burdensome” and often leave researchers with partial or unreliable data, impacting “their ability to conduct research, including whether users, including minors, are being exposed to illegal or harmful content.”
The commission also said Meta’s platforms, Instagram and Facebook, were both in breach of their obligations to provide EU residents with an easy way to report illegal content. The commission said both platforms impose several unnecessary steps before users can report content, and accused Facebook and Instagram of using so-called “dark patterns,” tricks that manipulate users into taking certain actions.
“Such practices can be confusing and discouraging. Meta’s mechanisms for flagging and removing illegal content may therefore be ineffective,” the commission said in a statement.
The EC also said that both meta-platforms’ moderation appeal mechanisms do not allow EU residents to provide sufficient explanations or evidence to support their appeals. “This makes it difficult for users in the EU to further explain why they disagree with Meta’s content decisions, limiting the effectiveness of the appeals mechanism,” the European Commission wrote.
TikTok says it has made “significant investments” in data sharing and provides nearly 1,000 research teams with access to data through its research tools. “While we are reviewing the European Commission’s findings, the requirements to loosen data protection measures place the DSA and GDPR in direct tension. If full compliance with both is not possible, we ask regulators to clarify how these obligations should be reconciled,” a TikTok spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
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Meta, on the other hand, claimed that it had changed its tools and processes to comply with DSA requirements. “We do not accept any suggestion that we have breached the DSA and continue to negotiate these issues with the European Commission. The European Union has introduced changes to content reporting options, complaints processes and data access tools since the DSA came into force, and we are confident that these solutions are consistent with what is required by EU law,” a Meta spokesperson said.
The findings are part of an investigation launched into both companies in early 2024. The EC had launched an investigation into TikTok, focusing on advertising transparency, data access for researchers, content moderation, protection of minors, and other concerns. The investigation into Mehta began after the commission announced that Facebook and Instagram were suspected of violating rules for large platforms regarding election integrity.
The DSA is a set of EU rules governing the moderation of online platforms and content that broadly addresses concerns about the increasing risks to consumer welfare in the digital realm. The law imposes a series of additional requirements on major platforms such as TikTok and Meta in areas such as algorithmic transparency and systemic risk.
Fines for confirmed violations of the DSA can reach up to 6% of global annual revenue.
The EC said both Meta and TikTok can review the investigation documents, contest the findings and commit to addressing the issues.
Note: This story has been updated to include comments from TikTok and Meta.
