OREANDA-NEWS The European Commission (EC) should pay attention to the practice of biased content filtering on the social media platforms of Meta (recognized as extremist in Russia and banned), X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok, which contradicts freedom of speech. The text with the corresponding appeal was sent to the EC by Samira Rafaela, a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands.

"Shadow ban" is an artificial reduction by moderators of the social network of impressions of certain publications in the feed. It is believed that the account may get into a "shadow ban" due to violations of community rules, but a number of critics claim that through this tool, the owners of social networks censor "objectionable" opinions.

"We have become aware of a very disturbing practice when large social media platforms, such as Meta, X and TikTok, secretly hide certain publications and content that they consider incompatible with their own opinion," the MEP said in an appeal.

This practice of "shadow ban" was used, in particular, to conceal publications and content on the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, which suppresses the voices of a certain community.

In the context of this information, Rafaela also refers to the EU Digital Services Law, the purpose of which is considered to be "the creation of a safer digital space in which the fundamental rights of all users of digital services will be protected."

Thus, the deputy asks the EC questions about the work to combat the "shadow ban".

"What set of methods can the Commission develop in the future to prevent "shadow ban" and other methods aimed at reducing the visibility of certain users of the platform, even if they did not violate the rules of conduct?" "What is it?" she asked.

Earlier, a group of EP members appealed to the EC for clarification regarding the activities of Meta and the social network X against the background of the war in Israel. In his address, the text of which was read by "Lenta.<url>", MEPs express concern about the spread of "malicious materials" through these organizations.