European Union Investigates AliExpress Over Spread Of Illegal And Pornography Materials

Alibaba's AliExpress could face a major fine after the European Commission on Thursday, March 14, opened an investigation into the potentially illegal and pornographic spread of material, which is the third investigation after social media platforms X and TikTok.

This step was taken based on the power given to EU executives from the Digital Service Act (DSA) which requires companies to make more efforts to tackle illegal and harmful products on their platforms. This was followed by requests for information sent to AliExpress in November last year.

EU Commission officials told media crews they were concerned about the potential spread of illegal products such as counterfeit drugs, inappropriate foods, and ineffective food supplements at AliExpress.

They are also investigating the possibility of hidden links where inappropriate products can be sold in an opaque way for users and the role of influencers in this regard.

"We have not found at this stage that AliExpress is not compliant. We only suspect that we have elements that are not compliant. These are not findings of violations," said one official.

AliExpress mengatakan bahwa mereka menghormati semua aturan dan regulasi yang berlaku di pasar di mana mereka beroperasi.

"... we have worked with, and will continue to work with relevant authorities to ensure we comply with applicable standards and will continue to ensure that we will be able to meet the DSA requirements," the company said. "AliExpress is committed to creating a safe and obedient market for all consumers."

Big online platforms like AliExpress - or very large online platforms (VLOPs) - are companies with more than 45 million users in Europe subject to the strictest DSA rules. Violations can result in fines of up to 6% of annual global turnover.

The commission last Thursday also sent a request for information to Microsoft's Bing, Google Search, Meta Platforms (Facebook, Instagram), Snapchat, Elon Musk's ByteDance's TikTok, and X regarding the use of generative artificial intelligence.

EU Commission officials said they wanted to find out whether the companies were conducting risk assessments and had risk mitigation measures to address potentially harmful generative artificial intelligence content.

"We are certainly concerned about the dangerous category, be it deep fake news or deep fake relevant to general elections aimed at manipulating the public environment," officials said.

The companies have until April 3 to answer questions regarding election protection and until April 24 on other issues.

The popularity of generative artificial intelligence systems such as Microsoft-backed ChatGPT and Google's Gemini chatbot have sparked concerns about misinformation and fake news.

The Commission also sent a request for information to Microsoft's Linkedin regarding the potential use of personal data for targeted ads following complaints from civil society organizations, giving a deadline of April 5 to provide responses. Until now the investigation into X and TikTok is still ongoing.