Amid a secondary-school student mobilisation in France and other social protests in several European countries, Italy and Belgium in particular, some gatherings have led to violence or looting. Some such scenes were broadcast live and then reposted on social media. The phenomenon has alarmed several MEPs, who on Friday 23 October sent a letter to Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for Technological Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen.
The cross-party letter, initiated by Stéphanie Yon-Courtin (Renew Europe, French) and co-signed by 30 MEPs from S&D, Renew Europe, and EPP, calls on the Commission to act on several fronts. The first is to establish the scale of the online phenomenon. “Today, no one can say how many people saw the calls to loot, how much of that reach was driven by recommender systems, or how much the platforms earned from it”, they write.
The signatories ask the Commission to use its investigative powers under the Digital Services Act (DSA) and send requests for information to very large online platforms. Specifically, they want to know how widely the content was seen, how long it took platforms to remove it, and whether any reports were made to local authorities.
The other part of the letter is on preparations for future crises. MEPs are asking the Commission to clarify whether the violence could constitute a crisis within the meaning of Article 36 of the DSA. The mechanism, on the European Board for Digital Services’ recommendation, would allow the Commission to ask ‘very large online platforms’ to assess their own contribution to such events, and take measures to mitigate their impact.
The MEPs remind the Commission that, as a last resort, the DSA allows “the temporary restriction of access to a service”. “Such a restriction may only be ordered by a judicial authority, once all other powers have been exhausted”, the signatories explain.
The final point raised in the letter is on protecting minors online. The MEPs believe that minors were exposed to this content, and are asking the Commission to consider whether the guidelines around Article 28 “could specify the safeguards expected of platforms with regard to minors’ accounts in crisis situations”.
Read the letter: https://aeur.eu/f/o3b (Original version in French by Louis Dubar)