The European Commission sent a request for information to Meta under the Digital Services Act (DSA) on Friday (16 August), seeking details on compliance with data access and election monitoring requirements.
A request for information is a formal procedure to gather detailed data for assessing compliance or evidence. Meta is required to respond by 6 September.
In this latest instalment of the Commission’s DSA actions on Meta, the Commission seeks information on how the firm plans to meet requirements for researcher access to publicly available data on Facebook and Instagram, as well as updates to its election and civic discourse monitoring features.
This action follows the discontinuation of Meta’s CrowdTangle tool, used for tracking and analysing social media content and engagement across Facebook and Instagram.
“We announced last year that we would discontinue CrowdTangle because it did not provide a complete picture of what is happening on our platforms,” a Meta spokesperson told Euractiv.
“In its place, we have built new, more comprehensive tools for researchers, called the Meta Content Library & API,” which provide access to and interaction with publicly available data on Facebook and Instagram for research and analysis purposes, the spokesperson said, adding that they will “remain in discussion” with the Commission.
The DSA, the EU’s digital rulebook, entered into force on 17 February and established comprehensive regulations for managing content on online platforms.
Meta’s Facebook and Instagram were classified as Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) under the DSA last year, which means they must follow strict rules for handling illegal and harmful content.
On 30 April, the Commission started an investigation into Meta under the DSA for failing to provide effective real-time election monitoring tools and researcher data access.
Meta addressed these issues with new real-time dashboards in CrowdTangle in May, which show live data and trends related to social media activities and election monitoring. These have now been discontinued.
Based on Meta’s response, the Commission may take several actions: impose interim measures to quickly address issues, issue non-compliance decisions if Meta is found not to be meeting legal requirements, or accept commitments from Meta to make necessary changes and resolve the concerns.
The Commission could also impose fines for incomplete or misleading information and may also issue a formal request for compliance, with potential penalties for failure to respond.
It is the latest in a series of actions against Meta under the DSA.
In February, Meta and TikTok announced they were suing the Commission over an annual supervisory fee, implemented under the DSA. By May, the Commission launched an investigation into Meta for potential DSA violations concerning minor protection. In July, the EU executive accused Meta of breaching digital competition rules under the EU’s competition regulation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), with its “pay or OK” model.
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