An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: The EU Commission has fired a shot across Facebook and Twitter’s bows, having issued a proclamation decreeing that “social media platforms” must do more to remove “illegal content inciting hatred, violence and terrorism online.” Although what is said in the EU proclamation is nothing new — indeed, in the UK, the measures proposed by the EU’s talking heads have been standard practice for years — what matters here is not what is being said publicly, but instead the threat of what might happen unless Facebook appeases the bloc’s leaders. The EU said that platforms should appoint dedicated points of contact for police forces and other State agencies to talk to about illegal content; appoint trusted content moderators (“flaggers,” in EU-ese); and invest in “automatic detection technologies.” In addition, illegal content should be deleted within “specific timeframes.”

All straightforward; nothing new there, at least from the British perspective. Yet the threat is in the EU’s later words: “Today’s communication is a first step and follow-up initiatives will depend on the online platforms’ actions to proactively implement the guidelines. The Commission will carefully monitor progress made by the online platforms over the next months and assess whether additional measures are needed.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – EU Gives Ultimatum To Facebook and Twitter: Obey Us Or We’ll Start Regulating