Thierry Breton, the European Commission's internal market commissioner, asked TikTok to "spare no effort" to crack down on false information during a video conversation with Zhou Shoufu, the CEO of Chinese owned TikTok (Tiktok Overseas Edition) on Monday. However, he also acknowledged that TikTok, a video sharing platform, has made some changes.
According to a landmark EU law, TikTok, which is favored by young online users, is one of the 19 platforms facing stricter regulations in combating illegal and harmful online content, according to Agence France Presse.
According to the report, after a video call, Breton stated that he saw changes in the TikTok platform over the past few months, with the release of new features and investments aimed at protecting users and investing in content auditing, trust, and security.
TikTok stated in its first transparency report since the EU Digital Services Act came into effect that in September of this year, the platform deleted 4 million "non compliant" videos in the EU. According to the law, all major platforms must publish transparency reports every six months.
Breton stated that after launching an investigation last month, the European Commission has made sufficient efforts to investigate whether TikTok is complying with digital services laws.
Brayton emphasized, "We must spare no effort more than ever to protect our citizens, especially children and adolescents, from illegal content and false information
According to the report, Theo Bertram, TikTok's Vice President for European Government Relations and Public Policy, stated that Breton and Zhou Shouzi had "positive" discussions on TikTok's progress in implementing the Digital Services Act.
According to the report, Zhou Shouzi will meet with Vera Jourova, the EU Vice President responsible for values and transparency, and Didier Reynders, the EU Judicial Affairs Commissioner, in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss issues including data protection and the EU's new tough restrictions on the market power of large technology companies.
Previously, on October 12th, Breton wrote a letter to Zhou Shouzi requesting measures to be taken against false information and violent content on the TikTok platform after the Islamic terrorist organization Hamas attacked Israel.
Meanwhile, on November 6th, the European Union also announced an investigation into Alibaba's export e-commerce platform AliExpress, seeking more detailed information on the measures taken by the platform to protect online consumers from illegal products, including counterfeit drugs.
The European Commission said it has issued a formal request to AliExpress. This is the first step of an investigation procedure taken under the new EU Digital Services Law. The law aims to combat the spread of illegal goods and online content.
AliExpress needs to respond before November 27th.
The European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into effect in August this year, imposes an obligation on IT giants to delete false information, and any violations will result in fines. Brayton emphasized that TikTok, which has a large number of young users, "has a special responsibility to protect young people and children from the influence of violent content and terrorist propaganda.
Previously, Breton had written letters to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) owner Musk and US IT giant Meta (formerly Facebook) CEO Zuckerberg, requesting the same.
On October 12th, the European Commission also revealed that it had launched an investigation into X's compliance with the DSA.