DSA requires that users in Europe to have greater control over content
ALBAWABA – Meta’s Facebook and Instagram users in Europe will enjoy greater control over content, the company announced Tuesday ahead of stricter European Union (EU) laws that come into effect Friday, news agencies reported.
The landmark EU law forces Meta and other big tech companies to more aggressively police online content, to protect users, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). Especially against hate speech and disinformation.
The world’s top 19 players, including Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, TikTok and X, formerly Twitter, must comply with the new rules or face heavy fines.
"The DSA [Digital Services Act] is part of a bigger strategy to give more power to individuals, to the regulators, to civil society," said Suzanne Vergnolle, a professor of technology law at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts in Paris.
"It is another step towards more accountability," she told AFP.
In Norway, Meta has been incurring an ongoing fine of $97,000 per day for its continued non-compliance with an order issued by the Norwegian data protection agency Datatilsynet.
The order was issued August 14, according to AFP, and the company has not yet suspended its targeted advertisement mechanisms, which are based on personal data collected by the social media platform.
Notably, the data is collected without the users’ explicit consent.
"This is an unreasonable decision, which was not possible to conform to in the given timeframe," Meta's lawyer Christian Reusch told the court, as quoted by Norwegian news agency NTB.
Meta is in the midst of a similar legal case in Ireland, where its European headquarters is based, having been slammed with a $421.58 million fine, as reported by AFP.
On August 1, the social media giant said it would ask users in the European Union, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland to give their consent before allowing targeted ads on its networks. But the Norwegian regulator has said that is insufficient, notably due to the lack of a binding timeframe to put the consent in place, the France-based news agency reported.
Will Musk’s X follow with Meta users in Europe to have greater control over content?
As the new EU law comes into effect on Friday, all eyes turn to Elon Musk, the American billionaire and owner of microblogging social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Musk acquired Twitter back in October last year, and has since introduced various changes to its content policies. Not to mention having rebranded the platform as ‘X’.
Under Musk’s regime, Twitter has become adopted a relaxed approach to content policy, in direct opposition to the EU’s new rules.
One of the changes announced by Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, includes giving EU users the option to view different types of content not based on profiling, according to AFP. A requirement under the DSA, and an option that is lacking on Musk’s Twitter, or X.
"We're now giving our European community the option to view and discover content on Reels, Stories, Search and other parts of Facebook and Instagram that is not ranked by Meta using these systems," Clegg said in a blog post.
"For example, on Facebook and Instagram, users will have the option to view Stories and Reels only from people they follow, ranked in chronological order, newest to oldest."
Meta has already given Facebook and Instagram users more control over how they view content on their main feed but this latest move goes further, AFP reported.
TikTok announced a similar change earlier in August that would give EU users the option to turn off the feature that shows content based on their interests.
More than 1,000 people were working on DSA implementation at Meta, the senior corporate official said.
