Vera Jourova, Vice President of the European Commission, has urged the short video-sharing app TikTok and the social media platform X to increase their efforts to combat illegal hate speech. This appeal followed Jourova's meeting with TikTok CEO Shou Chew and X’s Global Affairs Head Nick Pickles, as the EU scrutinizes the efforts of major tech companies to remove harmful content.
Tech giants faced heightened scrutiny last month due to a surge in harmful content and misinformation following Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7. The bloc considers Hamas a terrorist organization. The EU is also trying to prevent misinformation from influencing the European Parliament elections in June 2024.
Under the European Digital Services Act, which came into effect a year ago, large tech platforms and search engines are required to make greater efforts to combat harmful and illegal content, or face the risk of fines. TikTok stated that artificial intelligence and over 6,000 moderators have removed millions of posts since the Hamas attack, and it has a large dedicated team for removing violent content related to children.
Jourova expressed through her spokesperson on X her satisfaction with some improvements made by TikTok and urged it to continue intensifying its efforts to tackle illegal and harmful content and the exploitation of children. Regarding X, Jourova noted that the platform does not have enough staff who speak some EU languages to combat misinformation and expressed concern over reports of a significant number of cases of violent and illegal content.
Jourova's spokesperson mentioned that Pickles stated that violent content has increased online, not just on X, since the Hamas attack. Earlier, Jourova had met with executives from Meta and YouTube.
