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Facebook, Twitter and Google are under more pressure in Europe to comply with\u00a0regional rules. The latest issue they find themselves on the hook for relates\u00a0to complaints pertaining to\u00a0a variety of consumer rights that have been investigated\u00a0by EU regulators since last year.<\/p>\n
EU consumer authorities have been specifically looking into complaints about unfair terms and conditions, and looking for\u00a0ways to tackle fraud and scams that mislead consumers when they are using the social networks \u2014 such as fake promotions to \u2018win a smartphone for\u00a0\u20ac1\u2019 that also\u00a0sign the user up to a hidden long term subscription for hundreds of euros.<\/p>\n
Last\u00a0November the three social media firms were sent letters by the EU regulators asking them to address the areas of concern. That was followed, earlier this month, by\u00a0a meeting between the companies, regulators and the European Commission to discuss proposed solutions.<\/p>\n
The companies\u00a0have now been given a\u00a0month to come up with fixes. If their proposals fail to pass muster they could face enforcement action in future, the EC said today<\/a>.<\/p>\n Contacted for a response Facebook, Twitter and Google all declined to comment, saying they have nothing to share at this stage.<\/p>\n A variety of EU rules are involved in the matter, including the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive<\/a>, the E-commerce Directive<\/a>, the Consumer Rights Directive<\/a> or the unfair contract terms Directive<\/a>.<\/p>\n The latter directive, for example, can invalidate standard terms conditions if they create a\u00a0significant imbalance in parties\u2019 rights and obligations to the detriment of the consumer \u2014 meaning the terms\u00a0would be judged unfair.<\/p>\n The Directive also requires that TCs be\u00a0drafted in \u201cplain and intelligible language\u201d \u2014 to ensure consumers are informed in a clear and understandable manner about their rights.<\/p>\n Some of the specific things\u00a0the\u00a0EC emphasizes today that social media companies\u00a0cannot do under EU consumer rules (suggesting\u00a0the three are being accused of, at least, some of these failings) are:<\/p>\n TCs are something we\u2019ve long criticized as a horrible problem<\/a>\u00a0in the tech space. And while Facebook, Twitter and Google are clearly not the only companies in the industry that\u00a0could\u00a0be accused of muddying their terms with opaque language, swingeing vagueness and impenetrable layers of complexity, the huge and growing societal power of social media platforms \u2014 and these three giants specifically \u2014 is bringing them into contact with\u00a0regulators\u2019\u00a0spotlights<\/a>, more and more.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, for example, Facebook and Twitter were criticized for continued\u00a0failings to promptly remove hate speech<\/a> from their platforms\u00a0in Germany. The government there has now proposed a new law aimed at standardizing social media platforms\u2019 content moderation processes to ensure compliance in future.<\/p>\n Meanwhile\u00a0growing\u00a0awareness of how\u00a0algorithms that social media firms use to distribute content on their\u00a0platforms can encourage and amplify the spread of \u2018fake news\u2019 continues to ruffle feathers \u2014 and is starting to land on\u00a0political agendas<\/a>.<\/p>\n In recent years social media giants\u00a0have also come under increased pressure<\/a> to do more to help government agencies in the region combat terrorism. With great power, it would seem, comes increasing societal and regulatory responsibilities for social media platforms.<\/p>\n Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s recent open letter<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 which sought to reframe\u00a0some of the\u00a0societal divisions\u00a0that have been demonstrably exacerbated by\u00a0social networking as a need to further embed social networking structures into human societies to harness\u00a0even more\u00a0of people\u2019s\u00a0activity<\/a> \u2014 is unlikely\u00a0to be the last public pronouncement the Facebook CEO\u00a0feels moved to make as\u00a0social networking platforms\u00a0and political discourse are wound ever tighter.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Featured Image: Twin Design<\/a>\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/-pNldQ9_c00\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Facebook, Twitter and Google are under more pressure in Europe to comply with\u00a0regional rules. The latest issue they find themselves on the hook for relates\u00a0to complaints pertaining to\u00a0a variety of <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-4169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n