Will the European Union get Big Tech in line? And has the end of the digital Wild West really arrived? As of this Friday, the answers to those questions will begin. Internet companies such as Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple and X (formerly Twitter) must now comply with new European legislation in the EU.
The so-called Digital Services Act (DSA) is intended, among other things, to protect the user of online services against incorrect information, hate speech and misuse of personal data. What makes it a breakthrough: for the first time, it is no longer the big technology companies themselves who determine the most important rules on their platforms on their own.
Ten questions about the European attempt to tame Big Tech:
1 What’s happening this Friday?
On August 25, the EU will enter the first phase of the DSA – a comprehensive new rulebook that internet companies must adhere to. The new rules will apply to the nineteen largest internet services, including social media such as Facebook, TikTok and X and webshops such as Amazon and Zalando. For these services with at least 45 million monthly active users in the EU, the DSA will enter into force earlier than for smaller internet companies. They will be next spring.
2 What do those new rules entail?
It is a long laundry list, with the overarching idea: more transparency and less illegal material. For example, it should become clearer to users why they see certain posts and there should be an option to disable algorithmic selection based on personal data – and to view messages chronologically, for example. Facebook and Instagram users get a button to arrange their timeline chronologically.
If their own posts lose reach or are removed altogether, social media users should be given an explanation of the reasons. It should be easy to appeal against the decision to remove a message.
Internet companies must act harder and faster against illegal material. In the case of social media, this concerns, for example, the removal of child pornography and racist posts, in the case of web shops, the removal of fake products or dangerous toys. There should be a clear button for users to report illegal material.
It is interesting for platforms that there will be strict rules for advertisements, which will significantly affect their revenue model. Users should no longer be served ads based on sensitive personal information, such as religion, sexual orientation or political affiliation. Minors may no longer be approached with advertising on the basis of personal data.
Finally, the nineteen companies must submit an analysis this week in Brussels of which ‘systemic risks’ they may cause. For example, an assessment of the way in which they contribute to the spread of disinformation, to cyberbullying or to psychological problems. They must also consider the extent to which their policies affect freedom of expression. In their analysis, the companies must also explain how they intend to limit the risks mentioned.
3 What does the user notice?
If the internet companies comply properly with the DSA, users will be less bothered by illegal expressions and products. They encounter less misinformation, fewer counterfeit brand items, and fewer attempts at political influence and propaganda. They also get more insight into why they see certain ads, and more rights to challenge decisions made by the platforms.
If messages are removed or restricted in distribution, the platforms should not only explain why this is happening. The user should also be able to easily appeal against it, and then be told what happened to that complaint. Anyone who has bought something on an online marketplace is given the opportunity to inquire at the platform who or which company is the supplier of the product.
4 Who checks whether companies will actually do this?
The European Commission will monitor compliance for these ‘big nineteen’. It is assisted in this by newly appointed national supervisors. In the Netherlands, this function is placed with the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). The national supervisors will soon also focus on enforcement for smaller companies.
There is already doubt whether this is enough. The few hundred officials that Brussels puts on the operation are dwarfed by the armies of lawyers that the tech giants can deploy. Spicy: Big Tech itself has to pay a ‘supervision fee’ of a maximum of 0.05 percent (depending on the number of users) of global revenues to co-finance enforcement in Brussels.
If such a large tech company does not comply with the rules, the Commission can hand out fines of up to 6 percent of global annual turnover. Repeat offenders can be (temporarily) banned from the EU.
5 Why is this important, and not just for Europeans?
Because it is the world’s first serious attempt to regulate the digital world. Until now, Europe has worked with voluntary codes of conduct, with tech companies promising to better deal with illegal and unwanted material and to be transparent about algorithms and advertisements. But hate messages and disinformation continued to proliferate online, and scandals at Facebook and X, among others, repeatedly showed that the tech giants really didn’t care. Now there are hard rules for the first time, with hefty fines as a stick behind the door.
The success of this approach is therefore closely monitored not only in Europe. If the EU succeeds in taming Big Tech, other countries may draw inspiration from it. Perhaps more importantly, the effects can already be felt elsewhere. It would not be the first time that tech companies immediately adjust their policies around the world in response to European rules.
Read also: ‘Large tech companies no longer have the wind in Europe’
After all, it is sometimes more complicated and more expensive to offer different services for different regions. You also saw this ‘Brussels effect’, for example, in response to the stricter privacy rules that the EU introduced in 2018. It could just be that the timeline of an average American will soon look different.
6 Which companies are concerned?
Initially, it concerns nineteen large, mainly American, platforms – so-called VLOPs (Very Large Online Platforms) and search engines. The only European company on the list is Germany’s Zalando, the only Chinese companies are TikTok and Alibaba’s online retailer AliExpress. The other sixteen are: Amazon, Apple, Booking.com, Facebook, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Twitter, Wikipedia and YouTube and the search engines Bing (from Microsoft) and Google Search.
7 How did they prepare?
Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, among others, wants to show that it takes the new European rules very seriously. More than 1,000 people across the company are working to meet DSA requirements, Nick Clegg, president of global affairs, writes this week an extensive blog post.
A number of adjustments have already been made. For example, since February, the ads that teens between the ages of 13 and 17 see are no longer based on their activities on Meta’s apps, but only on their age and location. This should prevent them from being sucked into an ever-growing stream of ‘problematic content’.
Also TikTok adapts to the new rules. This gives users the option to disable the personalization of their timeline. What they see in the “For You” section will no longer be based on their own behavior on TikTok, but on what is popular in their own region and around the world.
How X prepared for the DSA is unclear. Elon Musk, who took over the social medium in October, has repeatedly assured that he respects that law and will comply with the obligations arising from it. But after the massive rounds of layoffs that Musk has implemented, there is little left of the department that has to ensure that messages are removed that violate its own rules, for example by inciting hatred or violence.
8 Will it remain with this package of laws?
No. At the same time as the DSA, the EU also passed legislation specifically targeting the market power of the tech giants, the Digital Markets Act (DMA). This focuses on, for example, the way in which Amazon favors its own products, or how Apple disadvantages competitors in its app store. Europe also wants to tackle this, including a ban on giving priority to its own services and an obligation to give users control over their own data.
Read also: Competition expert: ‘Brussels should just start tackling tech giants’
At the beginning of September, the European Commission will announce which large companies fall under the new market rules. Then they have six months to adjust their business model. Those DMA rules are expected to be at least as drastic for the tech giants as this Friday’s.
9 Why are there no such rules in the US?
In the United States there is a lot of talk about regulating Big Tech, but Congress has not come up with national measures for years. This is not only due to the great political division, but also to the powerful lobby of the technology companies. It effectively opposes the restriction of freedoms of the tech giants.
In addition, in the US government restrictions on the free market have traditionally been controversial. Rules that can be interpreted as restrictions on free speech are completely met with resistance. Silicon Valley widely read blogger Mike Masnick recently made it with characteristic reluctance to European Commissioner Thierry Breton, ‘who often gives the impression that he is pleased with his power to suppress free speech’. Masnick called the DSA “ridiculous, freedom-suppressing regulations whose enforcement is a nightmare.”
10 Does the DSA restrict freedom of speech?
National laws and the platforms’ own rules limit everything that can be said and written online. Concerns that the DSA will go significantly further were inadvertently fueled this summer by European Commissioner Breton. Against the background of riots in French cities he said that, if digital media doesn’t immediately remove incitements to violence, a government can shut down the platform within its borders.
Then one hit storm of protest among organizations for digital civil rights. Breton subsequently insured that the EU stands for freedom of expression and a neutral and open internet. Only in extreme cases – for example failure to remove systematic calls for violence or manslaughter – can platforms be temporarily blocked in accordance with existing legislation.