Facebook and Twitter facing fines for stalling on EU rights

SOCIAL media firms are being warned by Brussels that they must reply quicker to national requests for the takedown of illegal content online, and other internet problems.

The European Commission has also threatened to fine Facebook and Twitter if they don’t heed EU consumer law more fully, including giving their users the right to withdraw from online purchases and to have disputes resolved under EU law rather than US law.

Facebook employs more than 2,000 people in Dublin, while Twitter employs around 300 people here.

“As social media networks are used as advertising and commercial platforms, they must fully respect consumer rules,” said Vera Jourová, European Commissioner for Justice.

“It is unacceptable that this is still not complete and it is taking so much time. EU consumer rules should be respected and if companies don’t comply, they should face sanctions.”

Ms Jourová praised Google, which employs 7,000 people in Dublin, for complying with EU consumer rules, but said Facebook and Twitter were lagging behind.

Facebook and Twitter had agreed only “to provide a dedicated email address that national authorities can use to notify infringements”, without committing to deal with such requests within specific timeframes, Ms Jourová said.

The European Commission says it has received “numerous complaints” by consumers targeted by “fraud or scams when using these websites”, as well as having been subject to certain terms of services “that do not respect EU consumer law”.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said the company had worked with EU authorities to make changes to its terms and to ensure greater transparency.

It said further updates of the terms were planned later this year.

“We have long had tools in place to inform people about content removals and intend to expand these tools later this year,” she said.

The social media giants have been warned about this since November 2016, when Brussels launched an “enforcement action” against them.

Since then, the big tech firms have agreed to change terms of services that purported to limit or exclude the liability of social media networks, especially their practice of sidelining EU law in favour of Californian law.

They have also agreed to scrap terms and conditions that tried to get around mandatory EU consumer rights, such as an EU citizen’s right to withdraw from an online purchase.

Facebook, Twitter and Google have committed to implementing the changes to their terms by the end of next month.

In a separate development yesterday, Government officials have defended their controversial plan for broadband rollout, insisting the heavily criticised tender process is fit for purpose.

Officials from the Department of Communications told an Oireachtas committee on communications, climate action and environment that there is no way to speed the process up.

The officials made their remarks as Opposition TDs said the broadband plan was not fit for purpose because it had been almost three years since the process began.

The rollout plan was thrown into disarray last month when Eir dropped out of the bidding process, citing complexity and uneconomic prospects.

A contract is expected to be awarded to the remaining bidder, a consortium including Enet, by the end of next September.

As social media networks are used as advertising and commercial platforms, they must fully respect consumer rules