(Brussels) The European Commission announced on Friday that it had opened an investigation into the measures implemented by Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram), and Snap (Snapchat) to protect minors, in particular their “physical and mental health”, the day after an identical approach targeting TikTok and YouTube.
“The Commission is asking companies to provide more information on the steps they have taken to comply with their obligations to protect minors under the Digital Services Act,” a statement from the executive said European.
Meta and Snap have until December 1 to respond. The Commission specifies that “based on the evaluation of the responses, it will determine the next steps”.
Such a request for information, under the new digital services legislation (DSA) which came into force at the end of August, does not constitute a challenge at this stage.
However, this is a first step in a procedure which could ultimately lead to heavy financial sanctions in the event of proven and prolonged breaches of the regulations. In extreme cases, fines could reach 6% of the global turnover of the groups involved.
This legislation imposes new obligations on 19 very large internet players, particularly in terms of combating illegal and harmful content and protecting children. For several weeks, the European Commission, responsible for its application, has been tightening the screws on platforms.
She already sent a request for information to Meta on October 19 about the dissemination of “terrorist and violent content,” hate speech and disinformation in the context of the Israel-Hamas war. Similar investigations target the social networks TikTok (owned by the Chinese group ByteDance) and X.
On Monday, the European executive also opened an investigation against the Chinese online sales site AliExpress concerning the alleged distribution of illegal products, in particular fake medicines.
European Digital Commissioner Thierry Breton was in Beijing on Friday, where he went to the headquarters of Alibaba, parent company of AliExpress, for discussions with the group’s CEO.