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EU significantly expands USB-C obligation
by Florian Bodoky

In the opinion of the EU Commission, Meta and TikTok are violating the European Digital Law with non-transparent systems and a lack of reporting options.
The European Commission accuses Meta and TikTok of violating provisions of the Digital Services Act (DSA). In their opinion, the platforms are not sufficiently fulfilling their transparency and reporting obligations.
Brussels also sees considerable deficits in terms of transparency. Researchers still do not have sufficient access to platform data to investigate risks for users.
TikTok has been criticised in particular for its advertising register. This allegedly contains information about advertisers, target groups that are targeted and the content of adverts placed. The Commission believes that this register is not transparent enough. It also makes it difficult to conduct independent analyses of the political or social reach of advertising.
Meta explained that it had already taken steps to improve the processes for reporting illegal content and to expand access to research data. TikTok emphasised that the company supports transparency, but sees contradictions between the DSA obligations and the requirements of European data protection law. Both companies want to work closely with the Commission and adapt their systems if necessary.
The EU Commission emphasises that the proceedings are still ongoing and that the companies will be given the opportunity to comment. Only then will a final decision be made. Large platforms must expect that breaches of transparency or reporting obligations will no longer be treated as a trivial offence in future.
I've been tinkering with digital networks ever since I found out how to activate both telephone channels on the ISDN card for greater bandwidth. As for the analogue variety, I've been doing that since I learned to talk. Though Winterthur is my adoptive home city, my heart still bleeds red and blue.
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Show allSpecifically: Meta is not supposed to offer clearly recognisable and easy-to-use options on Facebook and Instagram for reporting illegal content. Content such as hate speech, terrorist propaganda or depictions of sexual abuse should be able to be reported to the moderation team so that they can deal with it. On both platforms, however, users are discouraged from doing so by confusing menus and misleading design. The Commission sees this as a violation of the DSA requirement for VLOPS (very large online platforms).