Members of the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) on Monday 8 April supported the Commission's flagship measure to require Internet platforms to remove violent terrorist content within an hour (see EUROPE 12095/14), but with some flexibility. They supported the compromise on this issue defended by Daniel Dalton (ECR, UK) by 35 votes to 1 (8 abstentions).
This removal deadline of one hour is the flagship measure of the Commission's draft regulation, but soon raised objections, as the rapporteur himself considered it complex to implement depending on the type and size of the platform. Some groups felt that it did not make sense, for example, the Greens/EFA believe that an hour is far too long a time for a platform like Facebookor far too short for a smaller organisation that does not have staff dedicated to the task of content removal.
The Greens/EFA group therefore tried to submit an alternative compromise, which would mean that the removal should be carried out “as soon as possible”, but it was rejected during the vote.
The British rapporteur has succeeded in recognising the case of medium-sized companies with a specific amendment: when a company receives a removal order for the first time, it will be entitled to a 12-hour period to receive information on how to remove this content before the one-hour removal order is sent to it and becomes effective.
Another addition: this removal order will be issued by a competent authority (judicial or other independent authority), but which will not have any 'cross-border' competence. It may have direct authority over a company with its headquarters in the country or it may have to refer the matter to the competent national authority. Nor will a decision to remove have a direct impact on the whole territory of the EU with immediate deactivation, a parliamentary source explained.
No ‘generalised surveillance'
In any case, the text adopted has reassured the Greens/EFA Group, but also other liberal groups, in that it has made the Commission's position more flexible on areas that are very problematic for them, such as the obligation to put in place proactive measures to detect all violent terrorist content or to make mandatory use of automated tools (filters).
From a strict obligation at the outset, the final text has moved on to “specific” (optional) measures, which do not require all platforms to organise proactive content detection.
If this was already happening on the major platforms, the Greens/EFA feared that generalised surveillance would develop. This will prevent medium-sized companies from having to take proactive measures. Only companies that have been subject to several rejection orders could be encouraged by the authorities to implement these specific measures, for example, through additional staff dedicated to the detection of illegal content. Their structure, size and financial health will also have to be taken into account in the enactment of these measures.
Other amendments: alerts made by Europol are not covered by these rules, while the very definition of terrorist content has been clarified by placing more emphasis on the notion of intent (to carry out a terrorist act). Information content relating to journalistic work will not be affected by these removal measures.
The EPP is disappointed and would have liked a more ambitious final compromise, after often finding itself isolated against the ECR or the ALDE. The text voted in the LIBE committee will have to be confirmed in plenary, in theory next week. For the EPP Group, this will be an opportunity to try to harden certain points once again. On the other hand, the 'trilogue' negotiation is only likely to start under the next Parliament. For Daniel Dalton, who twice postponed the planned date of the LIBE vote, it was in any case important not to give a blind “green light” to the Commission's proposal, whose initial text needed to be improved, he said before the vote. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)