EU's New Rules Puts 'Very Large Online Platforms' Like Twitter, YouTube, Insta And Others Under The Microscope

The European Union has announced that 19 major online platforms and search engines, including Twitter, YouTube, Google Shopping, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, will be subject to additional scrutiny under the new content moderation rules.

This move could potentially lead to a clash with some companies like Twitter, which may not have sufficient staff to comply with the new requirements.

Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton stated on Tuesday that these "very large online platforms," or VLOPs, with over 45 million monthly active users (equivalent to about 10 per cent of the bloc's population), will be accountable for removing illegal content, hiring adequate content moderators who can speak every EU language, and submitting annual risk assessments to the EU's executive body outlining how they deal with harmful content, reported the Bloomberg.

Failure to comply with these regulations could result in penalties of up to 6 per cent of the company's annual revenue or even lead to the platform being banned.

“I am particularly concerned by the content moderation system of Facebook, which is a platform playing an important role in the opinion building,” Breton said.

“Now that Facebook has been designated as a very large online platforms, Meta needs to carefully investigate its system and fix it where needed ASAP,” he added.

Last year, Europe introduced the groundbreaking Digital Services Act (DSA) as a response to what the EU perceived as a tech giant's failure to address illegal content on their platforms.

The DSA comprises regulations that limit the usage of sensitive data like religion or race for advertising targeting, a prohibition on advertising targeting to minors, and a ban on strategies that coerce individuals into consenting to online tracking.