Coimisiún na Meán investigates Tiktok and LinkedIn
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What investigation has Coimisiún na Meán launched into TikTok and LinkedIn?
The online safety regulator Kommissioner Mian has launched a new investigation into the social media giants TikTok and LinkedIn. It suspects that they both have confusing and difficult-to-access ways for users to complain if they suspect that some content is illegal. The Commission is taking the action under the new EU rules called the Digital Services Act. The issue arises because there is a difference in the law between illegal content and posts which breach the platform's own guidelines. John Evans is the Digital Services Commissioner with the Commission and I spoke to him and began by asking him to give you some examples of how TikTok and LinkedIn might be hiding ways to report illegal content.
So we've opened up these two investigations today, one into LinkedIn and the other one into TikTok. And the concern, what we refer to as Article 16 and Article 25 of the Digital Services Act. So what Article 16 does is it gives people the right to report illegal content online. Article 25 is really about how that information is presented. So, for example, if you spot something illegal online, it should be easy for you just to follow a few clicks, alert the platform and then allow them to make a determination. And not chase around on FAQs? Yes, or follow. One of the concerns we have is that some platforms might have been using their terms and conditions channel as a substitute for the illegal content channel.
So this is important, the distinction between illegal content as the user sees it and the terms and conditions of the platform itself, isn't it?
It is. One of the main differences, the important differences, I think, is that when you alert something, alert a platform about content under the illegal content channel, that gives you some rights you don't necessarily have if you're reporting on the Terms and Conditions channel.
How do TikTok and LinkedIn make it difficult to report illegal content?
So an example there, a statement of reasons. Why is this? What is the... What are the reasons that a platform is giving back to you about whether or not the content is deemed illegal or not?
Okay. And in many cases, of course, they don't give any reasons. They just say, by our book, this content is fine.
If you go down the terms and conditions route, that's more likely the response you're going to get.
Did...
What are Articles 16 and 25 of the Digital Services Act?
Did the Kommission get notified or is it part of your own investigation to launch this investigation into TikTok and LinkedIn?
So we actually, about a year ago, we opened up a review of about 10 platforms. And just today marks a milestone in that. in that we're opening up to two investigations but we've also had some voluntary changes by some of the other platforms involved and then there's a number of other platforms that we're continuing to engage with and some of those may may turn into investigations in due course as well the reason we decided back a year ago to do this review is that we have a contact center so we've got many contacts in relation to this issue and we're also the digital service coordinator for europe so we are getting complaints from many of the other european states about this issue Yes, and the notice and action mechanism, as we call it, the ability to flag content, illegal content online, was an issue that was being raised right across Europe.
And when you started your investigations, did you liaise with these platforms to say, look, we're looking into this? And did any of them make any changes? And did any of them ignore them?
So the way it would have gone is we had actually announced in public that we were doing this review across this number of platforms. We would have had requests for information that would go out. We would have done some user testing to see what actually... A secret shopper type thing? Yeah, it's just you set up an account.
Why is it important to distinguish between illegal content and terms of service violations?
And yeah, secret shopper was a good way of describing it. And just try to document how easy it is to go through the process to make a flag.
And were you surprised that a platform like LinkedIn disappointed you?
So the reason we have LinkedIn in this is that there was a period of time where there was a significant period of time where a user didn't have any dedicated channel for illegal content at all.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What investigation has Coimisiún na Meán launched into TikTok and LinkedIn?
0:01–1:54
2
How do TikTok and LinkedIn make it difficult to report illegal content?
1:54–2:16
3
What are Articles 16 and 25 of the Digital Services Act?
2:16–3:37
4
Why is it important to distinguish between illegal content and terms of service violations?
3:37–7:15