More than a year after its introduction in August 2023, the Digital Services Act (DSA) is now under full-scale attack from across the Atlantic (see EUROPE 13554/3). In recent weeks, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, respectively bosses of the social network X and Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram), have stepped up their criticism of European regulations.
On Saturday 11 January, the Facebook boss even described them as “censorship”, while comparing the DSA and its fines of “more than $30 billion [...] over the last 10 or 20 years” to “almost like a tariff”.
“Europe has an ever increasing number of laws institutionalising censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there”, he said during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
Mark Zuckerberg has urged the future US administration to oppose the fines imposed by the European Union on US technology companies for breaching the rules of its competition policy (see other news).
“In Europe, freedom of expression is one of our fundamental values. It is respected and protected by the DSA. So it’s very misleading to say that”, said Henna Virkkunen, European Commission Vice-President and European Commissioner for Tech Sovereignty, in an interview with Politico.
Mr Zuckerberg’s statements come just days after Meta’s sudden announcement that it was abandoning its fact-checking system in the US, instead relying on users to add “notes” to messages, in the same way that X now uses “community notes” (see EUROPE 13553/5).
While this initiative is not fundamentally at odds with the obligations of the DSA, it will have to prove its effectiveness to the European authorities if Meta is to avoid a formal investigation.
“We are not saying what content moderation policies should be put in place on the very large online platforms. It is their responsibility. If they want to rely entirely on community assessments, that’s a possibility. Now, whatever model the platform chooses, this option must be effective”, said Thomas Régnier, a European Commission spokesman.
According to several sources, on Tuesday 7 January Meta submitted two risk assessment analyses relating to its current fact-checking system. If there are any changes in the EU, Meta will have to provide a new assessment of these changes and justify the quality of its new system in light of the DSA.
Meta is now following in the footsteps of X and its owner Elon Musk, whose decisions regarding the management of his social network and the political stances he has taken have been strongly criticised in Europe (see EUROPE 13551/8).
The American billionaire has published numerous messages in support of the European radical right, in particular the Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) party, ahead of the parliamentary elections in Germany at the end of February.
In her interview, Henna Virkkunen did not rule out the possibility of extending the current investigation opened by the Commission against X in the context of the DSA (see EUROPE 13452/4).
“Of course we have freedom of speech in Europe and [Elon Musk] is free to express his views. But at the same time, X has obligations under the DSA and the platform is expected to assess and mitigate the risks it may pose to our electoral processes and civic discourse”, she insisted.
This tug-of-war between the EU and the American tech billionaires comes at a time when the Union is uncertain about Donald Trump’s future policy towards the Old Continent, just a few days before the new President is inaugurated in the White House. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)