The European Commission has asked social media giants including Facebook, TikTok and X to take part in a test to see whether they are doing enough to counter disinformation in the run-up to next month's German election,

Other signatories to the voluntary code set up in May 2016 are Dailymotion, Instagram, Jeuxvideo.com, LinkedIn, Microsoft hosted consumer services, Snapchat, Rakuten Viber, TikTok and Twitch

Hate speech is a huge problem, and companies like X, Facebook, and Instagram have pledged to the EU to do more to tackle it. At the moment, the terms and conditions of all social media platforms forbid users from posting content deemed to be hateful.