“What is illegal offline must also be illegal online”. This is the slogan of the new European regulation on digital security, the Digital Services Act (DSA), which will officially enter into force this Friday. Fight against misinformation, hateful and racist speech, online harassment or calls for violent demonstrations, the European Commission is going on the offensive against the abuses of the Internet giants by forcing them to take more action against illegal content, under penalty of heavy fines. A series of obligations will thus be imposed tomorrow on around twenty social networks, market places and search engines (Facebook, TikTok, X, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Wikipedia, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon , Alibaba or Booking).
All these platforms must, among other things, offer Internet users a tool to easily report “illegal” content, then remove it quickly. “Trusted flaggers” in each country (like Pharos in France) will have their alerts processed as a priority. And their algorithms will also be under scrutiny. A veritable “revolution” of the Net or a series of measures that are difficult to apply, ” 20 minutes takes stock with Romain Badouard, lecturer in information and communication sciences at the University of Paris-II Panthéon-Assas, and researcher at the Carism laboratory, author of The new laws of the Web. Moderation and censorship (Seuil editions in 2020).
The DSA is presented today as a veritable “constitution” of digital technology, a super weapon for regulating the Internet. How will it really be effective?
It is undeniable that this text marks a turning point in the digital world, it embodies a return of public power in the matter of the regularization of social networks. Beyond practical efficiency, there is a far-reaching political message. We have been told for years that the Internet giants were stronger than the States. But we see today that the European Commission has the power to impose rules. Will the text be effective? We will have to wait a few months or a few years to see how it will be implemented. What is certain is that the platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.) have already been preparing for this for some time by multiplying the announcements of measures aimed at improving online security. We can therefore undeniably expect significant changes.
This European regulation provides in particular for inflicting on platforms fines of up to 6% of their turnover, and even the prohibition of their activity in Europe in the event of non-compliance with the rules. Some doubt it is possible…
Even if some question their feasibility, all the measures of the DSA are applicable as they stand. The platforms are already very successful in moderating certain prohibited content (terrorist content, child pornography, etc.), for which they have long collaborated with the authorities, and in particular the European Commission. The idea is to extend this collaboration to all content on social networks (fake news, hateful content, etc.). It will require a lot more work from the platforms, and above all a lot more transparency.
Even if there have been efforts made in recent years, the moderation policies of the Internet giants remain very opaque. The main objective of the DSA is to attack this opacity, and to make the processes transparent. All platforms will now have obligations to respect. The largest, those with more than 45 million users, will also be directly controlled by the European Center for Algorithmic Transparency (ECAT), created last April by the European Commission.
Social networks will therefore no longer be the “ far west “, an area of “lawlessness”, as certain political personalities denounce it?
This is clearly not going to happen overnight. The legislator will not have the means to control the action of the platforms as firmly as he wishes. This may not be the end of the far west “, but there will still be a new deal. Whether it is for the daily moderation of content or to manage more important files related to foreign interference in electoral processes, or disinformation. Everything will now be closely monitored by the legislator.
Even if it’s not going to be a revolution right away, we will quickly see improvements. It must be borne in mind that the platforms have already been preparing for the implementation of this text for a while. For example, for everything related to transparency, access to data, or so-called “trusted flaggers” [des tiers qui font le lien entre les utilisateurs et les plateformes pour que ces dernières suppriment des contenus]we can think that all these new procedures are already ready and that they are only waiting for the implementation of the DSA.
After the urban riots, the head of state mentioned the possibility of “cutting” social networks in the event of a major crisis. European Commissioner Thierry Breton also said they could be “blocked” if certain content is not removed “immediately”. Some therefore fear today that freedom of expression is threatened…
Increasing moderation online can actually pose a risk to freedom of expression. But the threat is above all indirect: the platforms, which will be under more pressure, could embark on “over-moderation” by removing content that should not be, for fear of being fined. This was already one of the criticisms that had been made with the Avia Law, which had been rejected by the Constitutional Council. It is therefore a well-founded fear.
Regarding calls for online revolt, we must not forget that 10 years ago, for the Arab Spring, social networks were praised as tools of internal democracy when it came to calls for demonstrate, or social movements. Why when this is happening in France, we should suddenly allow forms of censorship? Generally speaking, the line between legitimate moderation and censorship is always very fine.
What are the main limits of this new European regulation?
One of the ambitions of the DSA is to unify European legislation on the regulation of social networks and exchange platforms. This could be very complicated, because there are very significant differences between EU countries. Will all the platforms play the game in the same way everywhere, knowing that the means implemented will not be the same? This is one of the main limitations of this text.
The other important issue is access to platform data. What the DSA provides is that the legislator can have access to these data to verify their authenticity. Audits are planned, but it is unclear how this will work, and what type of data regulators and researchers will have access to. It’s all still pretty vague. The risk being that social networks only play the game of transparency in appearance…