EU Commissioner Thierry Breton has been sending warning letters to online platforms, reminding them of their duty to address disinformation circulating about the war between Israel and Hamas. Now Breton has written a letter to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, reminding him of the company’s “precise content moderation obligations under the EU Digital Services Law.” Specifically, Breton is calling on Alphabet to be “very vigilant” when it comes to content related to Israel and Hamas posted on YouTube.
The European Commission has been seeing a “wave of illegal content and disinformation” spread through certain platforms, he said, telling Pichai that Alphabet has an obligation to protect children and adolescents from “violent content depicting hostage-taking.” and other graphic videos. Breton also warned Pichai that if Alphabet receives notices of illegal content from the EU, it must respond in a timely manner. Finally, he reminded the CEO that the company must have mitigation measures in place to address “civic discourse arising from misinformation.” The video-sharing service must also properly differentiate trustworthy news sources from terrorist propaganda and manipulated content, such as clickbait videos.
YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi said The edge that the service has “removed tens of thousands of harmful videos and canceled hundreds of channels” following the attacks in Israel and the “ongoing conflict in Israel and Gaza.” The platform’s systems, she added, “continue to connect people with high-quality news and information.” He also said YouTube teams are “working around the clock to monitor harmful images and remain vigilant to take action quickly if necessary on all types of content, including shorts and live streams.”
Breton was the same official who had previously sent Elon Musk an “urgent” letter about the spread of disinformation about X amid the war between Israel and Hamas. He denounced the spread of “false and manipulated images and facts circulating on (the platform formerly known as Twitter) in the EU, such as reused old images from unrelated armed conflicts or military images that actually originated in video games.” X CEO Linda Yaccarino posted the company’s response a day later, claiming to have removed or tagged “tens of thousands of pieces of content” and removed hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts from the platform. Even so, the European Union opened an investigation into X for lackluster moderation of illegal content and disinformation related to the war.
The EU commissioner also sent Meta a stern letter, expressing similar concerns about misinformation on its platforms. Meta responded by saying that “teams of experts across the company(ts) have been working around the clock to monitor (their) platforms while protecting people’s ability to use (their) apps to shed light on important developments happening on the ground. Breton technology-67066871″ rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:sent TikTok;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:7;pos:1;itc:0″>sent tiktok It also received a letter about the spread of disinformation on its platform related to the war between Israel and Hamas, giving the company 24 hours to explain how it is complying with EU law.
In addition to calling on YouTube to closely monitor disinformation between Israel and Hamas, Breton also addressed the issue of election-related disinformation in his letter. She asks the service to notify his team about the measures he has taken to mitigate deepfakes “in light of the upcoming elections in Poland, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Belgium, Croatia, Romania and Austria, and the elections to the European Parliament”.
Given the wide scope of #Youtuberemembering the precise obligations of the #DSA in the context of Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel and disinformation around the elections pic.twitter.com/82UXy3a8Dc
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) October 13, 2023
