The European Commission sent, on Thursday 9 November, requests for information to the digital giants YouTube and TikTok concerning the measures they have implemented to comply with their obligations to protect minors under the Digital Services Act (DSA) (see EUROPE 13262/9).
The Commission wants to know what action has been taken by the two digital platforms in terms of risk assessment and mitigation measures to protect young audiences online, particularly with regard to risks to mental and physical health.
The two companies, designated as Very Large Online Platforms under the DSA, will have to provide convincing answers by 30 November at the latest, failing which the Commission may decide to open formal proceedings. In accordance with the provisions of the DSA, these potential proceedings could result in fines of up to 6% of the worldwide annual turnover of the company concerned.
TikTok has already been the subject of another request for information, sent by the Commission on 19 October. This request concerned the management and measures put in place to curb the dissemination of terrorist and violent content, hate speech and disinformation. On 6 November, the Commission stated that its departments were “currently” assessing the measures taken by the Chinese company (see EUROPE 13286/8).
Other requests for information have already been sent by the European Commission to X (formerly Twitter) (see EUROPE 13271/13), Meta (see EUROPE 13275/4), Alphabet (see EUROPE 13271/14) and, a few days ago, to AliExpress (see EUROPE 13286/8), asking them to explain their compliance with the DSA rules. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)