The European Commission launched legal procedures against social media company TikTok on Tuesday over its alleged failure to curb election involvement, particularly in the Romanian presidential election last month.
The European Union’s executive arm has stated that it will request information and investigate TikTok’s policy on political advertisements and paid-for political content, as well as TikTok’s mechanisms for generating recommendations and the risks of their manipulation.
On December 5, the Commission directed TikTok to freeze data related to the Romanian election under the EU’s broad Digital Services Act, which governs how the world’s largest social media companies operate in Europe.
Romania’s top court nullified the presidential election due to allegations of Russian interference and Calin Georgescu’s victory in the first round.
The Commission will be able to take additional enforcement actions and accept TikTok’s undertakings after formal hearings begin on Tuesday. There is no set deadline to conclude the proceedings.
TikTok, which is owned by China’s Bytedance, stated that it has defended the integrity of its platform in over 150 elections around the world and has provided the European Commission with substantial information on its activities.
It also stated that it did not accept sponsored political adverts and proactively eliminated items that violated its policy on misinformation and hate speech.
According to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the fresh probe was launched in response to substantial allegations that foreign actors had intervened in the Romanian presidential election.
“We must preserve our democracies from all forms of foreign meddling. “Whenever we suspect such interference, particularly during elections, we must act quickly and decisively,” she said in a statement.
The Commission is aware of the danger of involvement in the German legislative election in February and Croatia’s presidential election beginning on December 29.
