THE EU’s top tech enforcer, Commissioner Thierry Breton, warned TikTok on Thursday over “illegal content and disinformation” on its platform, following the bloody attack by Hamas in Israel.
The alert, and a demand that Chinese-owned TikTok respond within 24 hours with details on how it is curbing online disinformation, mirrored similar warnings Breton issued this week to X, formerly Twitter, and Facebook parent Meta.
“Given that your platform is extensively used by children and teenagers, you have a particular obligation to protect them from violent content depicting hostage taking and other graphic videos which are reportedly widely circulating on your platform, without appropriate safeguards,” Breton said in a letter to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew.
Breton stressed that TikTok and other large online platforms were subject to the EU’s new Digital Services Act (DSA), legislation that came in two months ago that requires them to crack down on content deemed illegal under EU law or laws of individual EU countries.
