EU Targets 6 Big Tech Firms in Latest Crackdown on Online Content

European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton communicates on the EU’s 5G plan, in Brussels, Belgium, on Jan. 29, 2020. Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock

The European Union began to enforce its new digital rules this week by focusing on six global tech giants.

Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google parent company Alphabet, Facebook parent company Meta, and TikTok parent company ByteDance were among those newly classified as online “gatekeepers” on Sept. 6.

That will put them under the highest level of scrutiny under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which was enacted with far-reaching rules that are focused on improving user choice and making competition fairer.

The new rules will be gradually adopted in phases to allow tech firms to comply with strict requirements regarding user privacy, transparency, and content.

Big tech giants operating in the 27-nation bloc are being ordered to ban certain user-targeting practices and prevent “harmful” content from spreading.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared that the aim of the law is to “ensure that the online environment remains a safe space.”

EU Internet Law Being Rolled Out

The new law, which took effect on Aug. 25, will force major online platforms to take down any content that bureaucrats in Brussels deem to be “disinformation” or “hate speech.”

“The most impactful online companies will now have to play by our EU rules,” European Commissioner Thierry Breton, the EU’s internet enforcer, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Mr. Breton said the new law instead brings consumers many benefits.

“DMA means more choice for consumers,“ he said. ”Fewer obstacles for smaller competitors. Opening the gates to the Internet.”

The European Commission listed companies as gatekeepers if they provided a bridge between businesses and consumers through “core platform services,” such as Google’s Chrome search browser and Apple’s App Store.

In addition to protecting European consumers from “disinformation” and “hate speech,” the law also requires that tech firms be more transparent about their algorithms and how ads target users.

Consumers will now have access to platforms’ recommendation algorithms for ads and gain the right to opt out while making the reporting of illegal content under the DMA easier.

Safeguards for minors involving system redesigns, privacy, and mental health-risk assessments will be made stricter, and ads targeting children are now banned.

The big tech firms also must address content risks, enforce terms, expedite user reports to Brussels, and publish annual risk assessments while obeying red flags to remove offending content.

All companies listed as gatekeepers have a timeline of six months to begin to comply with the DMA’s requirements, which will eventually be expanded to apply to all digital services starting in February 2024.

Europe Cracks Down on Free Speech

The commissioner announced that Brussels takes compliance very seriously.

“My services and I will thoroughly enforce the DSA [Digital Services Act], and fully use our new powers to investigate and sanction platforms where warranted,” Mr. Breton said in a post on social media.

“Complying with the DSA is not a punishment. It is an opportunity for platforms to reinforce their trustworthiness.”

Big tech will also be forced to fund a permanent EC tribunal on disinformation of about 230 staffers who will decide on what counts as approved content.

Offenders found to be in breach of the DSA are liable to face a massive fine of up to 6 percent of their global turnover, and those that repeatedly break the rules could be banned from doing business in the EU entirely.

The first round of DSA rules is being applied to 19 major digital platforms, including social media apps, websites, and online retailers, with at least 45 million active users in the bloc.

The platforms falling under the new rules are Alibaba AliExpress, Amazon Store, Apple AppStore, Bing, Booking.com, Facebook, Instagram, Google Maps, Google Play, Google Search, Google Shopping, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, X, Wikipedia, YouTube, and Zalando.

“These systemic platforms play a very, very important role in our daily life, and it is really the time now for Europe, for us, to set our own rules,” Mr. Breton wrote on X.

He warned the platforms that he would be “very, very rigorous” about enforcement.

“The DSA is here, here to protect free speech against arbitrary decisions and, at the same time, to protect our citizens and democracies against illegal content,” Mr. Brenton said.

“My services and I will now be very, very rigorous to check that systemic platforms comply with the DSA. We will be investigating and sanctioning them, if not the case.”

However, the repeated threats by Mr. Breton were mostly met with criticism and mockery on X.

Many free speech critics see the new regulations as a path for progressive bureaucrats in Brussels to censor dissident voices online across the globe.

“So let’s be clear. According to you ANYTHING coming out of the authoritarian governments of the West is to be censored, banned. You are a criminal. And people like you are anti-human, anti-civilization, anti-life itself,” one Bulgarian commentator said in a social media post.

Another commentator noted the commissioner’s Orwellian doublespeak:

“‘Compliance isn’t punishment, it’s opportunity.’ That doesn’t sound tyrannical at all. Sounds like a normal sentence that someone who loves freedom would say.”

Other critics see this as a cynical power grab to hurt foreign tech firms for the benefit of European ones.

“It’s DP day (digital protection day)! DMA will mean more money for EU companies (none of which by coincidence, are listed as gatekeepers) and lower quality services for consumers,” Robert D. Atkinson, president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, wrote on social media.

All 6 Will Comply With New Rules

All of the six recently designated companies have publicly stated that they would obey the new EU rules.

Google Director of Legal Oliver Bethell said in a blog post that the company’s “aim is to make changes that meet the new requirements while protecting the user experience and providing helpful, innovative and safe products for people in Europe.”

“This means consulting with researchers, engineers and product designers to get this balance right,” Mr. Bethell said.

An Apple spokesperson told The Hill that it was “very concerned about the privacy and data security risks the DMA poses for our users.”

“Our focus will be on how we mitigate these impacts and continue to deliver the very best products and services to our European customers,” the spokesperson said.

Meta has stated that it would study the EC’s announcement and would comply, while ByteDance told The Associated Press that it disagreed with many of the new regulations.

Microsoft and Amazon have both publicly accepted the DMA and stated that they would work with the EC to implement it.

The reluctant participation of Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, with the new regulations, is causing some concern in the bloc.

EU monitors said Mr. Musk was falling behind in his compliance with the DMA and was failing to take Brussels’ fight against “disinformation” seriously.

Mr. Musk did post last month that X was “working hard” to comply with the rules after participating in an EU compliance “stress test” a few months ago.

Mr. Breton, who has had a publicly tense relationship with Mr. Musk since last year, warned that his platform would have to comply with the new rules or face getting booted off the continent.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.