The EU early yesterday finalized new legislation to require big tech to remove harmful content, the bloc’s latest move to rein in the world’s online giants.
The Digital Services Act (DSA) — the second part of a massive project to regulate tech companies — aims to ensure tougher consequences for platforms and Web sites that host a long list of banned content ranging from hate speech to disinformation and child sexual abuse images.
EU officials and parliamentarians finally reached an agreement at talks in Brussels on the legislation, which has been in the works since 2020.
Photo: AP
“Yes, we have a deal!” European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton wrote on Twitter.
“With the DSA, the time of big online platforms behaving like they are ‘too big to care’ is coming to an end. A major milestone for EU citizens,” said Breton, who has previously described the Internet as the “Wild West.”
“Today’s agreement on DSA is historic,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on twitter. “Our new rules will protect users online, ensure freedom of expression and opportunities for businesses. What is illegal offline will effectively be illegal online in the EU.”
The regulation is the companion to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which targeted anti-competitive practices among tech behemoths such as Google and Facebook, and was concluded last month.
The legislation had faced lobbying from the tech companies and intense debate over the extent of freedom of speech.
Tech giants have been repeatedly called out for failing to police their platforms — a New Zealand terrorist attack that was livestreamed on Facebook in 2019 caused global outrage, and the chaotic insurrection in the US last year was promoted online.
The regulation would require platforms to swiftly remove illegal content as soon as they are aware of its existence. Social networks would have to suspend users who frequently breach the law.
The DSA would force e-commerce sites to verify the identity of suppliers before proposing their products.
While many of the DSA’s stipulations cover all companies, it lays out special obligations for “very large platforms,” defined as those with more than 45 million active users in the EU.
The list of companies has not yet been released, but would include giants such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, as well as Twitter and probably the likes of TikTok, Zalando and Booking.com.
These players would be obliged to assess the risks associated with the use of their services and remove illegal content.
They would also be required to be more transparent about their data and algorithms.
The European Commission would also oversee yearly audits and be able to impose fines of up to 6 percent of their annual sales.
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