EU urges Meta and TikTok to intensify monitoring and fact-checking after Ceuta migrant surge

Following the sudden surge of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, the EU’s technology chief, Henna Virkkunen, demanded that Meta and TikTok dramatically improve their monitoring and fact-checking efforts to prevent the spread of false information during crises. She highlighted that a rumor about the Ceuta border being open circulated widely on social platforms, contributing to the deadly rush that resulted in 80 fatalities.

Virkkunen announced that the European Commission had met with the two platforms on Friday and would revisit the issue on Monday. Migration minister Magnus Brunner described the episode as a test of the bloc’s border security and warned that disinformation, possibly driven by criminal smugglers or foreign actors, must be tracked in coordination with Europol and other EU agencies. An open-source probe by the tech firm Golden Owl concluded the migrant wave was a deliberately organized operation. Spain reported that out of 72,000 arrivals on July 30-31, all but 2,000 had been returned by early August.