TikTok and Meta have agreed to join a voluntary coordination mechanism chaired by the European Commission with fact-checkers, following the spread of disinformation online that fuelled the mass crossings in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, in which around 100 people died.
On Monday, Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission’s Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, announced that TikTok and Meta had activated a crisis protocol to set up a cooperation mechanism with fact-checkers after tens of thousands of migrants illegally crossed the Spanish border.
“The EU Commission, Europol and platforms are exchanging daily and we have increased our coordination,” Virkkunen wrote on X. “TikTok and Meta have activated crisis protocols and have now put in place an ad-hoc escalation and cooperation mechanism with fact-checkers.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in a national television address at the peak of the influx that human traffickers had deliberately manipulated the interpretation of a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling, which found that migrants who entered by sea could not be immediately pushed back across the border.
“What has emerged from our talks with Moroccan authorities is that trafficking mafias took a self-serving interpretation of a Supreme Court ruling,” he said. That interpretation “spread like wildfire in recent hours.”
Fact-checking platform Maldita confirmed that messages falsely claiming asylum would be granted to anyone entering Ceuta and Melilla circulated on social media, encouraging people to cross the border illegally.
In a letter European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sent to Sánchez following the mass crossing, she set out a five-point plan to prevent future incidents, including an early-warning system that also covers social media activity.
“We continue to be vigilant in our work with our agencies and the platforms to stifle criminal networks selling false premises at the cost of lives,” Commission spokesperson Balazs Ujvari said on Tuesday.
The crisis protocol was activated under the EU’s code of conduct on disinformation, a voluntary tool that online platforms can use to comply with the bloc’s rulebook for online services, the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Meta and TikTok committed to working with fact-checkers after a meeting organised by the Commission on Friday, during which the parties agreed to establish an ad hoc cooperation mechanism.
“Through this mechanism, the platforms get better information from the fact-checkers — like any harmful disinformation related to, for example, a potential new mass crossing of the border — and on that basis the platforms can take action,” Ujvari added.
Because the mechanism is voluntary, it has allowed the Commission to nudge platforms to moderate the content they host, even outside the EU, where Brussels normally has no jurisdiction to enforce the DSA or other rules.
For the Commission, the advantage of working with fact-checkers is their command of local context, knowledge that can help streamline the platforms’ moderation efforts, since all parties have committed to prohibiting smuggling-related content.
A TikTok spokesperson told Euronews that the company had activated a task force in response to the situation in Ceuta, setting up a team to closely monitor regional trends and mitigate emerging threats in real time, including potential deceptive behaviour.
“We have a team monitoring the situation in Ceuta in real time and removing content that violates our policies – including content that offers to provide, facilitate or seek human smuggling services,” a Meta spokesperson told Euronews.