17/11/2023 (Agence Europe) – On Friday 17 November, the European Commission announced that it had asked its various departments to suspend their advertising campaigns on X (formerly Twitter). “We have noted an alarming increase in disinformation and hate speech on several social networks in recent weeks. (...) We have therefore recommended that services refrain from running advertising campaigns” on X, commented one of the Commission’s spokespersons, Johannes Bahrke. This decision comes the day after the Austrian association Noyb lodged a complaint with the European Data Protection Supervisor against the Commission, accusing it of having breached the rules of the GDPR during a targeted campaign carried out on social networks in September 2023 (see EUROPE 13294/9). In particular, this campaign could have been used to promote its draft regulation aimed at scanning messaging services for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) (see EUROPE 13277/16). (TM)