EU investigates TikTok over Romanian presidential election safeguards
Associated PressLONDON — European Union regulators said Tuesday they’re investigating whether TikTok breached the bloc’s digital rulebook by failing to deal with risks to Romania’s presidential election, which has been thrown into turmoil over allegations of electoral violations and Russian meddling. “Following serious indications that foreign actors interfered in the Romanian presidential elections by using TikTok, we are now thoroughly investigating whether TikTok has violated the Digital Services Act by failing to tackle such risks,” European Commission president Ursula on der Leyen said in a press release. “It should be crystal clear that in the EU, all online platforms, including TikTok, must be held accountable.” The European Commission is the 27-nation EU’s executive arm and enforces the bloc’s Digital Services Act, a sweeping set of regulations intended to clean up social media platforms and protect users from risks such as election-related misinformation. The commission said its investigation will focus on TikTok’s content recommendation systems, especially on risks related to “coordinated inauthentic manipulation or automated exploitation.” It’s also looking at TikTok’s policies on political TikTok said it doesn’t accept paid political ads and “proactively” removes content for violating policies on misinformation.