The European Commission said on Wednesday that it rejected “categorically » the accusations of the boss of Meta, the American Mark Zuckerberg, relating to alleged censorship on the part of the European Union (EU).
« We categorically reject any allegations of censorship“, declared the chief spokesperson of the European executive, Paula Pinho, who was reacting to the decision of Meta, parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, to end the “ fact-checking » within this group in the United States, with no impact in Europe for the moment.
In announcing this decision, Mark Zuckerberg complained about the EU’s propensity to enact legislation which, in his eyes, “institutionalizes censorship and makes it more difficult to develop innovation.”
Thomas Regnier, Commission spokesperson on issues of technological sovereignty, affirmed, for his part, that nothing in the new European legislation on digital services (“DSA”) obliges a platform to remove legal content .
Also read: Meta intends to eliminate its fact-checking program
This legislation, however, requires platforms to take measures against systemic risks, for example disinformation or attacks on elections. It leaves the platforms to choose the model they use, as long as it is effective.
Following Meta’s decision, the independent verifiers of this group’s platforms will be replaced by ” community ratings“, like what is done on Elon Musk’s X network, which simply allows users to add context under controversial messages. However, Meta verifiers will remain based in the EU.
Furthermore, the effectiveness of “ community ratings » is being examined by Brussels as part of the ongoing investigation into the X network (formerly Twitter).
Likewise, the legislation requires platforms to carry out prior risk analyses. If Meta wanted to change its policy in the EU too, switching to the community rating system, it would have to conduct such a risk analysis and submit it to the Commission.
With MAP
Related News :