The Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, discussed with MEPs on the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), on Wednesday 16 March, possible additional measures to be included in the future Digital Services Act (DSA) (see EUROPE 12900/18) to better fight propaganda and disinformation in the European Union.
“The war in Ukraine has changed things. Do we need new measures in the DSA to better arm ourselves? We must adapt so that the text that will be presented also responds to this problem”, said Thierry Breton, while the agreement on the DSA is currently the subject of interinstitutional negotiations (‘trilogue’) (see other news).
A trilogue took place on Tuesday 15 March between representatives of the Parliament and the French Presidency of the EU Council. On this occasion, the Commission “undertook to analyse the situation and to come back to the co-legislators with possible proposals”, said Mr Breton.
“With the DSA, we have a solid foundation for risk management and crisis protocols. But we may need more. We will assess the potential gaps. We should stay within the DSA architecture, but perhaps we could strengthen the measures in the case of exceptional crises”, added the Commissioner.
Several MEPs questioned the impact that the DSA could have had if it had already been in place at the time of the war in Ukraine.
If this were the case, “platforms would have had obligations and would have assessed how their services could be used to amplify certain content, via the algorithms”, argued Commissioner Breton.
Moreover, the risk mitigation measures would have been taken on a voluntary basis, not at the request of the Commission, he said. And the major platforms would have publicly reported on their actions and opened their data to researchers.
“This is a matter of concern. We need to look at this issue and see if what is in the DSA is relevant. On the Parliament’s side, we want Articles 26 and 27 on risk assessment and mitigation to be taken into account. Platforms must take their responsibilities”, said Christel Schaldemose (S&D, Denmark), European Parliament rapporteur on the DSA.
This reflection on possible measures to be introduced in the body of the Digital Services Act comes in a context of massive dissemination of disinformation on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, both from media close to the Kremlin, but also potentially from Ukrainian media and journalists.
At the beginning of March, the EU banned the state-owned media outlets ‘RT’ and ‘Sputnik’ from broadcasting on its territory as Russian propaganda outlets (see EUROPE 12902/9). These media outlets have referred the matter to the Court of Justice of the EU. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)