Tengrinews.kz - The executive branch of the European Union has initiated an investigation into the operations of social media platforms, fearing that vulnerable individuals are being exposed to fake news and content promoting self-harm, citing Euronews.
TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat will be required to respond to questions from the European Commission regarding how their video recommendation algorithms function. The Commission announced this on October 2.
The investigation, conducted under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), aims to uncover the reasons why vulnerable individuals encounter fake news related to elections or content glorifying eating disorders, depression, and drug addiction.
The Commission is interested in the impact of features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling, as well as the precautions these platforms take to prevent the spread of harmful content.
According to the DSA, major online platforms with over 45 million monthly users must adhere to strict transparency requirements.
One high-ranking EU official stated that the investigation should serve as a wake-up call for platforms to change their behavior, such as allowing users to hide certain types of videos.
Websites that fail to provide documents by November 15 or submit false information will face penalties under EU law.
"However, this check is just the first step, and the European Commission will decide whether to initiate formal proceedings after analyzing the responses," the article notes.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is not subject to this particular inquiry, but in May, the European Commission began a separate investigation to determine whether the interfaces of these networks exploit children's inexperience to create addiction.
The EU is already conducting investigations into TikTok, the social network X, and the Chinese online retailer AliExpress. Last month, a senior EU official stated that new investigations into alleged non-compliance with the DSA would be forthcoming.
Previously, we reported on how the EU's technical agency is checking whether Telegram is underreporting its user numbers in the EU. This investigation is being conducted by the Joint Research Centre, a service of the European Commission.
