The European Commission (EC) commenced an investigation into Meta Platforms to determine if Facebook and Instagram have done enough to combat election disinformation ahead of upcoming polls.
The EC is examining whether Meta Platforms is not complying with its Digital Services Act (DSA) related to the social media company’s policies and practices to thwart deceptive advertising and flag illegal political content.
The EC “suspects that Meta does not comply with DSA obligations related to addressing the dissemination of deceptive advertisements, disinformation campaigns and coordinated inauthentic behaviour” ahead of European Parliament elections starting on 6 June.
It also expresses concern over the non-availability of an effective third-party election-monitoring tool. It stated Meta Platforms is in the process of depreciating its real-time public insights tool, CrowdTangle, without an adequate replacement.
CrowdTangle enables election monitoring by researchers, journalists and civil society through visual dashboards.
“We suspect that Meta’s moderation is insufficient, that it lacks transparency of advertisements and content moderation procedures,” stated EC EVP in charge of competition policy Margrethe Vestager.
A Meta Platforms representative told CNBC it has “a well-established process for identifying and mitigating risks on our platforms”.
Reuters reported the investigation will focus on a Russia-based influence operation network called Doppelganger that can clone authentic media. Meta Platforms first brought that organisation to light in 2022.
The EC stated the DSA does not set any legal deadline for bringing formal proceedings to an end and noted it is “empowered to accept commitments made by Meta to remedy the issues raised in the proceedings”.
The DSA measures were instituted on 17 February of this year.
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