European Union justice commissioner Didier Reynders is set to meet with Twitter and Meta officials this week in Dublin, over concerns surrounding recent layoffs at the two social media giants.
Reynders said that heavy fines are possible if the massive reduction in staffing levels prevents the companies from complying with EU legislation.
Twitter has seen a 50% reduction in its global workforce since Elon Musk completed his acquisition of the company, while Meta announced plans to reduce staff levels by 13%, or 11,000 employees, earlier this month.
European Commission officials are concerned about the impact of the layoffs on the ability of both companies to comply with EU regulations, such as the GDPR data privacy regulation and the new Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires social networks to delete illegal content.
“It’s quite strange, at the moment where there are more and more obligations and necessity to put into force,” said Reynders of the decisions to reduce staffing levels.
“It’s too early to say that there is a real problem, but it is logical that we have some concerns, because of the size of the decisions taken – certainly in Twitter, but also in Meta and maybe others.”
The DSA, which came into force on November 16th, imposes extensive content-moderation standards, advertising limits, transparency and reporting duties on social media firms.
Reynders is set to meet with officials from the two firms on Thursday when he visits Dublin, and will seek assurances that the changes to staffing levels won’t affect compliance with EU regulations.