The European Union comes where the United States left a vacuum, where no comprehensive federal law addresses the power of big tech companies. Today, Saturday 23 April, the European Parliament and the EU member states finally reached an agreement on the Digital Services Act, a major piece of legislation that aims to tackle illegal and harmful content by making tech giants police the content circulating on their platforms more aggressively or face steep fines. The agreement comes just as politicians debate in Washington on how to curb the power of Big Tech and get them to clean up their platforms of harmful content with new rules, but to no avail.
A delicate matter that after the events of recent years, especially with Covid and the war in Ukraine, has made it necessary to put a stop to the rain of disinformation that has repeatedly polluted the scene, giving too much space to fake news on the web aimed at distorting the reality of health facts and events in the field in order to orient public opinion towards false truths.
The EU is putting the reins on the jungle of online information
The law aims to end an era of self-regulation in which Big Techs have set their own policies on what content can stand or be removed. It distinguishes itself from other regulatory efforts by tackling the online problem head-on, an area that is largely off limits in the United States due to First Amendment protections. Google, that owns YouTube, and Meta, the owner of Facebook e Instagram, as well as TikTok often at the center of the problem will have to face annual checks for "systemic risks" related to their activities, while Amazon it will face new rules to stop the sale of illegal products by verifying the identity of its suppliers before offering their products.
The law, which goes into effect next year, does not require internet platforms to remove specific forms of speech, leaving the final say to individual countries. For example, some forms of hate speech and references to Nazism are illegal in Germany but not in other European countries. The law also forces companies to add ways for users to report illegal content.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, issued a statement underlining the importance of this "historic" law. “The DSA will update the ground rules for all online services in the EU, ensuring the environment remains a safe space, safeguarding freedom of expression and opportunities for digital businesses. It gives practical effect to the principle that what is illegal offline should be illegal online. The larger the scale, the greater the responsibilities of the platforms”.
What do the new rules provide for Big Tech?
The law is intended to address the social harms of social media by requiring companies to more responsibly audit their platforms for "toxic" content. For their part, tech companies (with "more than 45 million active users" in the EU) will be forced to set up new policies and procedures to remove hate speech, terrorist propaganda, child sexual abuse and other material defined as illegal by European Union countries. So-called shady models – deceptive tactics designed to push people towards certain products and services – will also be banned under penalty of billion-dollar fines.
In concrete terms, a greater will be imposed on them transparency on data and algorithms of recommendation. There will be audits once a year by independent bodies supervised by the European Commission, which can impose fines of up to 6% of their annual sales in case of repeated infringements. For a company like Meta, Facebook's parent company, this could mean a fine of up to $7 billion based on 2021 sales figures.
“In the context of the Russian aggression in Ukraine and the particular consequences on the manipulation of online information, a new article has been introduced in order to establish a reaction mechanism in the event of a crisis – explained the European Council -. This mechanism, activated by Commission decision, will make it possible to adopt 'proportionate and effective' measures against very large platforms that would contribute to the spread of fake news".
We begin to close the circle around Big Tech
The Digital Services Act is part of an EU double bid to address the social and economic effects of tech giants. Last month, the 27-nation bloc agreed on another law, the Digital Markets Act, to counter what regulators see as anti-competitive behavior by the biggest tech companies, including their grip on app stores, online advertising and internet shopping.
In 2018, the EU introduced the General Data Protection Regulation, a broad set of privacy rules aimed at giving consumers more control over their information.
Together, the new laws underline how Europe is setting the standard for technology regulation globally. Frustrated by anti-competitive behavior, social media's effect on elections, and privacy-invading business models, officials have spent more than a year negotiating policies that give them sweeping new powers to crack down on tech giants worth trillions of dollars. dollars and which are used by billions of people for communication, entertainment, payments and news.
What do the US and Big Tech think about the new rules?
On Thursday, the former president Barack Obama he said the tech industry needs regulation to address the spread of disinformation online.
The endorsement, via social media, of Hillary Clinton. “For too long, tech platforms have amplified disinformation and extremism without accountability,” former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted on Thursday. “I encourage our transatlantic allies to push forward the Digital Services Act and strengthen global democracy before it's too late,” she concluded.
As for Big Tech, they haven't expressed much about the new rules yet. Google supported the Digital Services Act's goals in a statement, but that "the details will matter" and that it planned to work with policy makers to "get the remaining technical details." Amazon and Twitter declined to comment. So Meta and TikTok.
