After the European Parliament, the EU states also approved the Digital Services Act (DSA) on Tuesday. The aim is to put a better stop to illegal content such as hate speech on the Internet. Previously, negotiators from Parliament and EU states had agreed on the laws. The approval of the EU states was considered a formality.
“The Digital Services Act is one of the most groundbreaking horizontal regulations in the EU,” Czech Minister of Industry and Trade Jozef Sikela said in a statement, believing it has the potential to become the gold standard for other regulators in the EU It marks the beginning of a new relationship between online platforms, users and regulators.
The DSA ascribes more responsibility to platforms and is intended to ensure that certain content disappears from the Internet more quickly. Examples are terror propaganda, hate speech or the sale of counterfeit goods. The law is part of a digital pact. The second part is the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which the EU states had already approved in July. Above all, the DMA is intended to restrict the market power of tech giants such as Google and Facebook with stricter rules.
The European Parliament has already approved this law. The legal texts still have to be published in the Official Journal of the EU and should come into force after a transitional period of several months. (dpa)