Italy: Announced Competition Authority investigation into Meta’s platform Instagram and Asia Valente over alleged failure to prevent the publication of misleading content

On 17 November 2023, the Italian Competition Authority announced it opened an investigation into Meta’s platform Instagram and Asia Valente, content creator, over alleged failure to prevent the publication of misleading content. In particular, the creator, Asia Valente, is accused of not disclosing her brand deals and profiting from an inorganic following, and Meta is accused of not implementing sufficient protections to ensure that creators comply with the relevant provisions. Additionally, the Competition Authority claims that Meta failed to provide adequate information about tools for labelling branded content and has not implemented measures to verify the authenticity of interactions on the platform.