The European Commission reaffirmed
its commitment to enforcing European Union laws and compelling
social media platforms to respect citizens' rights after a storm
of criticism from United States tech bosses put the bloc on the
defensive.
No matter their origin or "where they're established", companies
offering services in the EU must comply with EU legislation,
Thomas Regnier, a commission spokesperson for technological
sovereignty, told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday.
The EU executive arm, responsible for enforcing the bloc's
digital laws, was responding after Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg
accused Europe of protectionism and "censorship" and piled the
pressure on the bloc after interventions in Germany and former
EU member state Britain from US tech billionaire Elon Musk
during the week prior.
In an interview with popular US podcaster Joe Rogan on Friday,
Zuckerberg called on US President-elect Donald Trump to defend
major US tech companies against EU sanctions.
Zuckerberg claimed that the EU had fined technology companies
"more than $30 billion over the last ten or 20 years," arguing
that its policy towards companies was "almost like a customs
tariff".
European regulators have fined Facebook parent company Meta
billions of Euro for violating data protection and competition
rules in recent years.
Zuckerberg echoed the comments of Musk, the owner of X and a
close ally of Trump, who has criticised the Digital Services Act
(DSA), a landmark EU law regulating digital content and social
media platforms.
Brussels rejects Zuckerberg's accusations, but has left its
legal arsenal for targeting the world's biggest digital
platforms holstered for now, apparently for fear of angering the
incoming US leadership after Trump got elected a second time.
"Social media platforms play an important role in people's daily
lives," Henna Virkkunen, European Commissioner for technological
sovereignty, wrote on X, "but they also have enormous social and
economic importance and influence,"
"In Europe, we want to create a safe and fair digital
environment," she added, highlighting that the EU's task is to
make sure that citizen's rights are respected and the bloc's
legislation is complied with.
Virkkunen's comments on X were the first response in defense
against Zuckerberg's attacks, but the commissioner refrained
from making any direct reference to the boss of Meta and from
criticising his company straight-out.
Brussels authority slow to intervene.
The Zuckerberg interview with Rogan took place a few days after
the Meta group announced that it was abandoning third-party
fact-checking in the US and would turn to a model known as
"Community Note", popularized by X, where users themselves
moderate and debunk lies.
Meta's decision to axe fact-checking in the US - which
disinformation experts fear risks opening the floodgates for
false narratives - also did not elicit a major response from the
EU executive arm so far.
The commission's silence is part of a pattern: it has stayed
resolutely out of the fray as Trump ally Musk goaded European
leaders with a series of incendiary outbursts on migration,
crime and freedom of expression.
The Brussels authority did however contradict statements made by
Alice Weidel, leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany
(AfD) party in conversation with Musk on X, regarding the
surveillance of their interaction on the platform by more than
one hundred EU officials under the DSA.
Weidel said that 150 EU bureaucrats would listen to the
conversation "to enforce this ridiculous law on digital
services". This was nothing more than censorship of free speech,
Musk said.
"That is wrong," said a spokesperson for the Commission. It was
not a question of monitoring the content of the livestream, or
reacting to it, instead two or three employees would monitor the
systems broadcasting and publishing the livestream.
These systems would include a platform's algorithm or
recommendation systems, for example.
In total, according to the commission, there are around 150
staff working on all aspects of enforcing the DSA, not just on
this one livestream. These staff would actively work on
monitoring platforms' compliance with the DSA and on other
various operations.
This article is published twice a week. The content is based on
news by agencies participating in the enr, in this case AFP,
ANSA, ATA, dpa, Europa Press, EFE .
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