the European Union opens an investigation targeting Facebook and Snapchat

The EU is once again attacking web giants. The European Commission announced on Friday November 10 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 announcement by the European executive comes the day after an identical approach targeting TikTok and YouTube.

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 infringements of the regulations. In extreme cases, fines could reach 6% of the global turnover of the groups involved.

Another investigation for “terrorist and violent content”

Meta and Snap have until December 1 to respond. The Commission specifies that“Depending on the evaluation of the responses, it will determine the next steps”.

The DSA 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.

On October 19, she already sent another request for information to Meta regarding the broadcast of “terrorist and violent content”, hate speech and disinformation in the context of the Israel-Hamas war. Similar investigations target, again, the social networks TikTok (owned by the Chinese group ByteDance) and X (formerly Twitter).