If Elon Musk was not immediately cooperative, the European Commissioner welcomed on France Inter the reaction of TikTok which immediately deleted “500,000 videos” which followed the war between Hamas and Israel.
“My role is to ensure that the information space is as protected as the public space”, declared Thursday October 26 on France Inter, Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, responsible for industrial, digital, defense and space policy. In the context of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the European Union has launched investigations targeting the social networks X, Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and TikTok to obtain details on the measures they are implementing against the dissemination of “fake news” and of “illegal content”.
“I did it because following the events [au Proche-Orient]and predictably, there has been an incredible resurgence of comments that are completely unacceptable, reprehensible and illegal on all platforms operating in Europe., justifies Thierry Breton. He sent a letter to the leaders of X, Meta, TikTok, but also Alphabet (parent company of Google and YouTube, in particular). “These letters engage and remind us of their responsibility. This is the first time that they have been designated in relation to their responsibility for what is happening in our democracies”welcomes the European Commissioner for the Internal Market.
“They do everything to enforce the law”
Thierry Breton assumes these “controls” because “total law zones don’t exist”. But he admits that “Regulation in the international space is complicated”. Proof of this, according to him, is that the European Union “is the first and only one to have done so. The European Commissioner for the Internal Market specifies that the platforms have responded. According to him, X, led by billionaire Elon Musk, initially expressed his incomprehension. On the other hand, he welcomes the cooperation of TikTok: “They told us the first day after our letter: we are immediately deleting 500,000 videos [problématiques]. Now there are four million. And they hired 6,000 moderators.”
Thierry Breton specifies that he has in his “team” more than “120 specialists who are responsible for monitoring what is happening on social networks night and day”. According to him, these platforms “adapt” after having “resisted”. He “do not hide” that he has “is the subject of a lobby campaign”. But now, he assures, these platforms “no longer resist”, they “know that it is the law and do everything to apply it”.
At any rate, “the actions I have taken, including formal investigations, will allow us to see precisely how [les dirigeants de ces réseaux sociaux] take this problem in hand [pour lutter contre la désinformation et la diffusion de contenus haineux] and, if necessary, to sanction them.”, warns Thierry Breton. He pursues : “The judge, if he decides, can possibly ban them temporarily if things don’t go well. So we entered into this procedure.”