Last Saturday, the European Union enacted the Digital Services Act, a law that requires social media corporations to police the content on their sites. The law attempts to address societal harms enabled by social media in recent years, including amplifying hate-speech and manipulating elections through misinformation.
The law establishes a framework for cleaning up content. Firms must rapidly take down hate-speech, terrorist propaganda, or content relating to child sexual abuse. Amazon and other e-commerce sites must prevent the sale of illegal goods. Google must prevent searches for illegal goods. Adds cannot target children. Adds cannot target users based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, political views, or labor union membership. Tech giants must be transparent about the algorithms used to target consumers. Consumers have the right to turn-off algorithms used to target them. Regulators have the authority to respond to misinformation during crises such as wartime or pandemics. Failure to comply could result in fines up to 6% of a firm’s global revenue—billions of dollars for the major tech giants.
This law was inevitable. Recent events have forced it. It’s not that the speech is being prohibited as much as the technology used to amplify that speech in ways never imagined is being regulated. This is similar to the situation faced in the early-20th century when electric utilities and highways were private ventures but gained the power to influence society’s destiny. The government stepped-in, regulating electricity and nationalizing highways. Last week’s ruling shows that Europe is going the regulation route, at least for now.
Individual countries will determine more precisely what speech is considered unacceptable, but the law will be enforced out of EU Headquarters. This marks a major shift in the enforcement power given to Brussels by EU member nations. (A 2018 law passed to protect personal data largely failed because countries did not have the resources to litigate against multinational corporations.) Google has said that it welcomes DSA’s goals but wants to work with policymakers to “get the remaining technical details right.” Those details are important for society’s sake—both from a security and a personal freedom standpoint.
Source:
Ryan Brown, “EU Agrees on Landmark Law Aimed at Forcing Big Tech Firms to Tackle Illegal Content,” CNBC, 22 April 2022.
Adam Satariano, “EU Takes Aim at Social Media’s Harms with Landmark New Law,” New York Times, 22 April 2022, accessed from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/22/technology/european-union-social-media-law.html
Photo: Techzine
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