Commission opens formal proceedings against Facebook and Instagram under the Digital Services Act

The suspected infringements cover Meta's policies and practices relating to deceptive advertising and political content on its services. They also concern the non-availability of an effective third-party real-time civic discourse and election-monitoring tool ahead of the elections to the European Parliament, against the background of Meta's deprecation of its real-time public insights tool CrowdTangle without an adequate replacement.

After the formal opening of proceedings, the Commission will continue to gather evidence, for example by sending additional requests for information, conducting interviews or inspections.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said:

This Commission has created means to protect European citizens from targeted disinformation and manipulation by third countries. If we suspect a violation of the rules, we act. This is true at all times, but especially in times of democratic elections. Big digital platforms must live up to their obligations to put enough resources into this and today's decision shows that we are serious about compliance. Protecting our democracies is a common fight with our Member States. Today in Prague I want to thank Prime Minister Fiala for his active role in raising the issue at European level, along with the triggering by Belgium of the emergency mechanism for exchange of information between Member States.

Read the full press release and learn more about the supervision of the designated VLOPs and VLOSEs under DSA