The European Commission intends to reopen very partially the e-commerce Directive (2000/31/EC), which governs online platforms in particular. While it does not intend to change the principle of ‘safe harbour’, the Commission does intend to strengthen the ‘notice and take down’ procedure as of next year.
According to our information, confirmed by an article in the Financial Times published on 24 July, this initiative will force platforms to remove illegal content, including racist or xenophobic content, or face a fine. DG Connect internal documents, described to EUROPE, suggest extending these rules to all actors in the sector, such as telecommunications companies, Internet service providers, search engines, cloud computing services and social media. The Commission would also seem to be considering the idea of developing a platform of national regulators, similar to what exists for telecommunications, to ensure that the rules are properly applied.
A reform announced by the future President von der Leyen
In her speech, the President-designate of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, suggested that she supported this reform. In her strategic priorities, published on 16 July, the day of the vote in the European Parliament, the former German Defence Minister announced "legislation on digital services", intended to "strengthening our rules on liability and security for platforms and completing our digital single market". According to the Financial Times, it was indeed the revision of the e-commerce Directive, sitting in the drawers of the Juncker Commission, that Ursula von der Leyen was talking about.
The details of this revision are still under review and will not be known until late 2020, but a priori the idea would be to establish better regulation on "hate speech, other illegal content and political advertising", says the FT, which adds that this initiative follows the Cambridge Analytica scandal, disinformation around elections and images of shared terrorist attacks on platforms. The newspaper also points out that the legislation will likely contain new transparency rules for political advertising and will require large technology platforms to subject their algorithms to regulatory control.
In her strategic priorities, Ursula von der Leyen certainly supports "common standards for dealing with issues such as disinformation and online hate messages". She announces an "Action Plan for European Democracy" which will contain legislative proposals to ensure greater transparency in paid political advertising and clearer rules on the financing of European political parties.
Other upcoming digital initiatives
For the rest, the German woman commits to present during her term of office a legislative proposal on the human and ethical implications of artificial intelligence, a project already cleared by the High Level Group of Experts on Artificial Intelligence (see EUROPE 12283/8, 12231/10). She said that this proposal should also consider how to use megadata to promote innovation.
On cybersecurity, Ursula von der Leyen only called for a change of mindset from "the need to know to the need to share". A slogan that she intends to apply by proposing a common cybersecurity unit.
More broadly, the future President of the European Commission called on all EU actors to mobilise: "It may be too late to replicate hyperscalers, but it is not too late to achieve technological sovereignty in some critical technology areas", explains her strategy paper, before calling for a change of approach, because "failure will be part of our path". The document encourages investment in disruptive research and breakthrough innovation, such as blockchains, high-performance computing, quantum computing, algorithms and tools to allow data sharing and data usage. To consult the document on strategic priorities: https://bit.ly/2xPVV90 (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)