ONLINE DISINFORMATION: European Union investigating Meta’s election policies

The European Union (EU) has begun investigation into social media giant Meta (formerly the Facebook company) for its alleged failures to remove election disinformation.

The EU declared on Tuesday that it was looking into the operator of Facebook and Instagram, claiming that the US business may have violated the online content regulations of the bloc.

Meta disclosed that the ongoing probe targets Russia’s Doppelganger online disinformation campaign, with efforts to combat misinformation in the run-up to the June EU elections being ramped up.

The commission declared that Meta’s content moderation measures are “insufficient” and that misleading advertising and misinformation are not addressed.

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Last year, the Digital Services Act (DSA) went into effect, requiring “Big Tech” to step up its efforts to remove dangerous and illegal content from social media sites.

“We suspect that Meta’s moderation is insufficient, that it lacks transparency of advertisements and content moderation procedures,” EU digital chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

“So today, we have opened proceedings against Meta to assess their compliance with the Digital Services Act,” she said.

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