Digital Services Act: New global standard for the internet
DSA
Today, Members of the European Parliament have just voted through the Digital Services Act (DSA), following the outcome of trilogue negotiations. The DSA will better protect the rights of all internet users, limit surveillance advertising, hold tech giants accountable and provide a better handle on hate, hate speech and disinformation.
Alexandra Geese MEP, Greens/EFA shadow rapporteur in the lead Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO):
"With the Digital Services Act, we are ending the omnipotence of internet giants and introducing the first tools to tackle hate and disinformation that divide our society. The law will not interfere with users' freedom of expression and instead focus on the practices of the big tech platforms themselves.
“YouTube, Instagram and co. must regularly assess the risks that their algorithms pose to fundamental rights, respect for human dignity, protection of minors, freedom of expression, public health or violence against women.
“Researchers and non-governmental organisations will be given access to the platforms' data in order to research the mechanisms from the outside and make them public.”
Kim van Sparrentak MEP, Greens/EFA Greens/EFA member of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, comments:
“The DSA is the first time that the EU is setting standards for the restriction of advertising tracking to protect users. This will protect people from corporations attempting to use their personal data to send them highly personalised, customised and sometimes manipulative ads.
“The EU is going ahead and restricting ad tracking, first for minors and for profiling based on sensitive data such as political opinion or sexual orientation. This is only a first step, but a really important start.”
Background:
Once the DSA enters into force, the European Commission will calculate which platforms belong to the group of those with more than 45 million users. For these very large online platforms and very large online search engines, the Digital Services Act will apply four months after their designation. For all others, the new rules will come into force on January 1st 2024, at the latest.
