EU orders Meta, TikTok to detail efforts to combat Israel-Hamas war disinformation

Oct. 19 (UPI) -- The European Commission on Thursday officially requested that Meta and TikTok explain their efforts to combat disinformation related to the current Israel-Hamas conflict.

The European Union's executive body called on the two social media companies to provide information on the measures they have taken to comply with the newly implemented Digital Services Act's provisions involving the spread of disinformation by Oct. 25.

Both companies were designated as "Very Large Online Platforms" under the DSA, requiring them to comply with "the full set of provisions" introduced by the law or face fines.

Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner overseeing the DSA, sent warnings to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew urging them to step up moderation of content related to the war.

Meta responded to that initial warning by stating it had "removed or marked as disturbing more than 795,000 pieces of content," related to the war in addition to taking steps to protect the identities of hostages and blocking hashtags on its Instagram platform.

The European Commission made a similar request to X, formerly known as Twitter, last week, requesting that it provide the details as of Thursday.

Breton at the time said that the request was the first step of its formal investigation into the company.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino had responded to an initial warning from Breton by saying that her company was fully cooperating with the laws of the European Union, and had already removed hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts from the platform.