Tech giants struggle to answer Dutch MPs on harmful content and influence

Social media companies TikTok, Meta, and Google were unable to allay the concerns of Dutch MPs during a discussion on transparency, potential influence, and the measures the platforms are taking to address these issues. MPs were repeatedly dissatisfied with the answers they received.

Barbara Kathmann of GroenLinks-PvdA appeared visibly frustrated at the end of the session when TikTok’s Thierry Marchand-Huiser avoided answering whether the platform could maintain a revenue model with only chronological timelines. He mentioned TikTok has several options, but did not address the potential impact of ending addictive algorithms.

Kathmann expressed a wish to “return to doodles,” referencing the messages once posted on friends’ Hyves pages. Hyves was the most popular social networking site in the Netherlands before the rise of Facebook. The site eventually struggled to compete with global platforms and transitioned into a social gaming site in 2013.

Meta Platforms representative Edo Haveman argued that recommendation algorithms help protect users by reducing children’s exposure to harmful material. But the National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism warned that the same systems may push young viewers toward increasingly extreme content, potentially accelerating radicalisation within just a few days.

Sarah el Boujdaini, an MP for D66, said the explanations from major tech companies conflict with expert warnings about the addictive and harmful nature of their algorithms. “It is not transparent. We do not know how the algorithms are structured.”

Thierry Marchand-Huiser stated that TikTok itself identifies and removes most of its flagged content. Laurens Dassen (Volt) questioned how much harmful or illegal content goes undetected, but no answer was offered. Meanwhile, Meta Platforms did not disclose figures on the volume of removed posts.