“On transparency, the results are very mixed”, summarized Lucile Petit, who directs the direction of online platforms at Arcom. The former CSA, which has become a regulator of online services, presented Monday its third assessment of the application by social networks of the law on the manipulation of information of 2018. This text invites Twitter, Meta (Facebook, Instagram) , Google (Youtube, Google.fr) or even TikTok to detail with Arcom the actions and means used to fight against the spread of false information, in particular.
“There is progress and some have made efforts to give more precise answers. But the platforms generally remain too discreet about the reality of the phenomena, summarized Mme Little. They give too few figures. This raises a question about their ability to measure and combat misinformation. »
In detail, TikTok was particularly singled out for its first year of responding to the questionnaire: its statement “particularly imprecise” is “out of step with the very important place taken by the platform, especially among young people”, regretted the member of the college of Arcom Benoit Loutrel, warning that the ” status quo ” was not possible.
Concern over Twitter
Twitter has been praised for having long made some of its data available to outside researchers, an effort that Arcom would like to see emulated by other platforms. But, apart from this point, the regulator did not hide his concern about the social network bought by Elon Musk. After the dismissal of more than half of the workforce, Arcom wrote to the company to ask it to clarify how it intended to fulfill its content moderation obligations.
“We received a response on time, Thursday at 5 p.m., which was not easy given the turbulent state of the platform [depuis son rachat], explained President Roch-Olivier Maistre. The mail makes a political statement about the desire to comply with the regulations. But he left us on our hunger as to the concrete translation of this speech within the teams of Twitter. We will enter into dialogue with Twitter to have details. »
In this declaration as in its general speech, Arcom warns the platforms that they will be subjected to increasingly strong pressure. Indeed, what is missing from the law on manipulation is a “power of sanction” – “The invisible hand of the digital market is not enough”explained Mr. Maistre – but this will be introduced in the European Digital Services Act regulation, warned the regulator.
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