The European Union will give tech and social media companies a “stress test” to see how they handle misinformation ahead of Germany’s election next month.
European Commission officials have invited tech companies, including: X, Meta, Snap, TikTok, Google, Microsoft, and LinkedIn, to a meeting on January 31, according to multiple news outlets. During this meeting, European Commission officials will quiz these tech companies about how they would react to different scenarios that could interfere with the upcoming election from AI-generated fakes to disinformation campaigns, according to Bloomberg.
TechCrunch has reached out to all the companies included for comment and will update this piece if we hear back.
This stress test will see whether tech companies are compliant with the EU’s Digital Services Act, which requires companies to have safeguards and protocol in place to combat misinformation and illegal content on their platforms.
This test is ahead of Germany’s snap federal election in February; the results could have large implications on the broader EU, as Germany is the largest member of the bloc.
The EU is likely taking a closer look at how tech companies are complying with the DSA now after bloc member Romania annulled the results of the first round of its presidential election last year after evidence of Russian interference, which they think may have been boosted by TikTok’s algorithm, and the documentation of 85,000 attempted cyber attacks on election websites and IT.
Elon Musk, and X, have already played a role in this upcoming election in Germany. Musk recently interviewed Alice Weidel, the leader of Germany’s far-right AfD party and a candidate in Germany’s upcoming election, on X.
This news comes just one day after President Donald Trump took aim at how EU regulators treat U.S. tech companies, including: Google, Meta, and Apple, two of which have been invited to this stress test.
While speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump said that the regulation of U.S.-based tech companies by EU regulators was “a form of taxation.”
