Against all odds — Making the Internet a safer place with the Digital Services Act
Very early this morning – or very late last night, depending on how you see it – the European Parliament, Council and Commission struck a deal on the Digital Services Act (DSA), a regulation that many across the globe define as “groundbreaking”.
EU institutions have worked hand in hand in record time, with determination and ambition to protect our citizens online
With the DSA, the time of big online platforms behaving like they are “too big to care” is coming to an end.
I wanted to share with you the main principles of this regulation which I have been working on together with my team and colleagues since the very first day of the mandate.
?The main challenge(s)
Like for any obstacle race, challenges have been present all along the road…
The main one has probably been to move forward at high speed
From the time we presented the draft text (December 2020) to its adoption by the European Parliament and the Member States this week, it took just 16 months! That's a sprint record for regulation at EU level!
With my teams and colleagues, we have managed to align no less than 8 parliamentary committees, 27 Member States, each with their own sensibilities, while taking into account more than 3000 contributions during our initial consultation.
This represents hundreds of meetings, hundreds of hours in negotiations, and in the end, a text of almost 100 articles that covers a huge range of online activity.
We are the first continent to do this.
Oh – and of course lobbying. As expected, some companies or lobbyists did try to water down this new legislation. But they did not succeed.
Our regulation passed in its entirety because it is in the general interest and the protection of all our citizens. ?
The DSA in a few words…
If I had to sum up for our fellow citizens this major text in one sentence, it would be:
"Everything that is prohibited offline must be prohibited online!"
The DNA of the DSA, its entire architecture in a way, is that we transpose into virtual life the obligations and prohibitions of physical life.
Europe is equipping itself with the tools to prosecute every illegal act in the virtual world: hate speech, child pornography, illegal products, etc.
We have devised a 'horizontal' instrument to which new sectoral legislation can later be 'plugged in'.
This is an absolutely crucial point, because it will allow this text to be relevant not for the years to come, but for decades.?
More than an achievement, it is a major milestone.
This is the first time in twenty years that Europe has tackled the regulation of the digital and information space.
We have seen during the confinements to what extent platforms and social networks have a huge impact on our lives, on teleworking, education, entertainment...
And we are currently witnessing the role of disinformation in Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine.
The last European directive regulating the Internet, the e-commerce directive, dates from 2000. A different era!
At that time, digital players were considered as hosts who did not control the content and were therefore not held responsible for it.
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Over time, these hosts ended up using their users' data to offer services, with the success that we know. But they have moved away from the hosting business, while relying on a certain legal vacuum to prosper.
Today, despite its weight and its contribution to European GDP, the digital space is still not fundamentally regulated.
It was urgent to remedy this and I was fully mobilised - with my teams - to achieve this as soon as possible.
?Here are the concrete new obligations of platforms
Platforms will have to comply with obligations that are graduated according to their importance. This is a first!
Today, to use the analogy with banks, some platforms do not consider themselves "too big to fail" but "too big to care". Some are even prepared to mint money and exempt themselves from obligations relating to the functioning of democracy! This is not acceptable.
The web isn’t a Wild West where anything goes. From now on, the more users a platform has, the more audience it has, the greater its responsibilities. ?Platforms’ ability to react will have to be commensurate, by having a sufficient number of moderators, for example.
The aim is also to preserve freedom of expression, while allowing for rapid ex post interventions
The principle of exemption from liability remains but applies only to hosts in the strict sense. Those who also provide services, in other words almost all platforms, will be subject to additional obligations.
In short, it is up to the platforms to adapt to Europe and its rules, not the other way round. ?
Close monitoring to check compliance
Each platform will have to have a legal representative in Europe. So we will now know who to call if there is a problem. And each Member State will have a regulator responsible for enforcing the rules and conducting audits, including on algorithms that promote the virality of content.
It is important to be able to act in real time, as soon as an alert is raised. Any national public authority will be able to give removal orders directly to the platforms concerned. We will also rely on a network of trusted flaggers, such as NGOs or rights holders, to ensure that platforms react as a priority.?
Unprecedented sanctions
Of course - and they will be gradual and unprecedented in their scope!
These fines will amount to up to 6% of the global turnover of the offending company. This is considerable!
And in the event of serious and repeated breaches, we can go as far as a ban on operating on European territory. These sanctions will be extremely clear.?
Introducing new obligations on platforms and rights for users would be pointless if they are not properly enforced. The new harmonised rules will apply directly and uniformly anywhere in Europe.
The Commission’s specialised teams will centrally supervise very large platforms, coupled with effective and dissuasive sanctions.
Class actions against platforms violating the law will be made easier, and damaged consumers will have to be compensated.
The DSA will not be a paper tiger.
We are ready.
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Expert Economique et Financier / Coordinateur de Projets
2 年Frankly your Digital Services Act is a typically bureaucratic exercise that is absolute nonsense both for digital users and producers. Why do not you try to answer real world issue rather than go all out on totally disconnected bureaucratic ideas. Obviously those that worked on this Act have little practical understanding of the digital services world. To begin with you should clarify whether you intend to protect customers and citizens interests or give a free hand to the sector giant firms. As for the inner market, there is no sign that the proposed Digital Services Act entice inner market producers to develop.... as far as I have understood it so far... As a matter of fact, it is hard to figure out who will be the actual beneficiaries of this Act...
Excellent news. Thank you.
plv Contract Manager Akzo Nobel Account team at Atos
2 年What I derive from the above post is that the EU want to solve 2 issues. 1. Containing malicious commercial usage of user data and 2. Repel amoral content and achieve this with regulations and sanctions. Let's look at a possible consequence. If a user of a big platform posts a text that is undesirable in the eyes of let's say a EU government, the Member State regulator of that government can have that post labelled e.g. as hate speech and call the platform moderator to take action against that post. Correct?
Executibe director at team work group consultancy pvt.ltd.
2 年Thanks for sharing
Certified Tourist Guide of Greece by the Ministry of Tourism
2 年Excellent! We are waiting for the final text. We all hope that the new EU legislation will soon be endorsed by the member-states and will end up in a fair level-playing field for all legal tourism stakeholders, including tourist guiding services in Europe ??