Apple and more than a dozen of the world’s biggest tech companies face unprecedented legal scrutiny, as the European Union’s sweeping Digital Services Act (DSA) imposes new rules on content moderation, user privacy and transparency.
From Friday, a host of internet giants – including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms, Apple’s online App Store, and a handful of Google services – will face new obligations in the EU, including preventing harmful content from spreading, banning or limiting certain user-targeting practices, and sharing some internal data with regulators and associated researchers.
For now, the rules only apply to 19 of the largest online platforms, those with more than 45 million users in the EU. From mid-February, however, they will apply to a variety of online platforms, regardless of size.
Any firm found in breach of the DSA faces a fine worth up to 6% of its global turnover, and repeat offenders may be banned from operating in Europe altogether.
MacDailyNews Take: Who moderates the moderators?
Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom – and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech. — Benjamin Franklin
Freedom of speech is a human right and the foundation upon which democracy is built. Any restriction of freedom of speech is a restriction upon democracy. – Deeyah Khan
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
Reminder to U.S. legislators:
U.S. Constitution First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
And Ivermectin works to cure and prevent COVID-19. Not so long ago, that statement of FACT would have been “misinformation” under the EU’s Orwellian law.
Yup.
Thank you EU. Large corporations can’t be trusted. The free market neither. Those bullies need to be regulated. It won’t be perfect but it’s a step in the right direction. They leave us no choice.
Why wait? Don’t need a ban, just block use by people of EU countries. How long before those idiots starved of posting their whatever, will storm the castle, so to speak of their gov’t. leaders demanding change in favor of Big Tech Corporations to give them back access.
The world would be a better place without the social media platforms of the Big Tech Corps. I would not mind going back to the early 2000s when all the crap didn’t exist yet.