BERLIN, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Germany's interior minister

told social media platforms on Wednesday to do more to prevent

disinformation before next month's election, such as clearly

identifying political advertising and labelling videos

manipulated with AI.

Faeser met representatives of the U.S.-based Google

, which owns YouTube; Meta, which owns

Facebook and Instagram; Microsoft ( MSFT ) and X; and TikTok,

owned by China's ByteDance, as debate rages in the U.S. about

whether regulating online platforms suppresses free speech.

Meta Platforms ( META ), for example, scrapped its U.S. fact-checking

programs this month and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said he would

work with U.S. President Donald Trump to push back on censorship

around the world, including in Europe.

X's billionaire owner Elon Musk, who has used his platform

to promote the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), is one

of Trump's leading advisors.

Faeser said that, given the current debate, she needed to

remind the platform operators about their obligation to follow

European law in Europe and to check their platforms more

thoroughly for criminal content, not less.

"Criminal acts such as death threats must be reported to law

enforcement authorities more quickly and consistently and must

be deleted by the platforms," she said in a statement.

"Political advertising must be clearly identifiable. Videos

manipulated with AI must be labelled as such."

She also said the algorithms used by the platforms to curate

users' feeds must be made more transparent "so that they do not

fuel dangerous radicalisation processes, especially among young

people".

Faeser has repeatedly warned of possible disinformation

campaigns, possibly from Russia, ahead of the federal

parliamentary election on Feb. 23.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told the World Economic

Forum in Davos on Wednesday that social media owners should be

held responsible for "poisoning society" and eroding democracy

with their algorithms.