The EU is under pressure to ensure that the Digital Services Act is being properly enforced.
It comes after a spate of complaints about hate speech and disinformation on social media platforms.
The problem has been brought to ahead by accusations that TikTok posts spoilt the Romanian presidential election. That election is to be re-run in the spring. The previously little known far right candidate who reportedly benefited from a huge social media boost is still ahead in the polls.
Elon Musk’s posts and reposts commenting on European affairs and his livestream with the leader of the far right AfD party in Germany has also caused upset.
The European Commission currently has several investigations ongoing into Musk’s platform, X, previously known as Twitter.
MEPs are also concerned by Meta’s decision to end fact-checking of posts on Facebook and Instagram. That change in policy will only apply in the US, the company says.
In Europe, social media platforms must follow strict rules under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Speaking in the European Parliament, Executive Vice-president of the European Commission for technological sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen, said “the DSA does not censor content. It creates efficient mechanism for the removal of illegal content defined by other EU or national law, such as illegal hate speech, because what is illegal offline is also illegal online.”
On the ground, it is national authorities who must enforce the DSA. Since many of the social media platforms have their European headquarters in Ireland, that job falls to the Irish regulator, Coimisiún na Meán.
“Rest assured the [European] Commission takes the enforcement of the DSA very seriously”, Henna Virkkunen insists.
Since the DSA came into force last year, the EU has opened 10 investigations. Only one of those cases has been closed so far.
“The compliance teams are working at full speed”, the commissioners said.
It is understood that the investigations have proven complex and technical requiring back and forth with social media firms. In some cases the EU has requested data including coding. Lawyers from both sides are also involved.