The connected world we live in has brought many benefits but poses challenges. Manipulative algorithms have been used to spread misinformation, and large platforms have wielded disproportionate power in digital markets.
Tech giants, the new power brokers of our society, wield an inappropriately large influence on the democratic debate. As politicians and citizens, we often find ourselves on these platforms, unwittingly contributing to their dominance in political discourse.
The adoption of two important laws, the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), to create a safer and more transparent online environment while offering more choices for consumers and holding tech companies responsible
These have two primary goals.
Protecting Your Rights: The DSA safeguards your fundamental rights while using digital services. Platforms must evaluate the risks of their platform and algorithm design to prevent illegal and harmful activities online and the spread of disinformation. This will ensure user safety, protect fundamental rights, and create a fair and open online platform environment.
Protecting a Fair Digital Market: The DMA allows more business opportunities and promotes innovation and competitiveness. Ensuring that “big tech” behaves fairly online leaves room for competition and contestability. The Digital Markets Act establishes a set of clearly defined objective criteria to qualify a large online platform as a “gatekeeper”
What do the DSA and DMA offer you?
- Better Protection for you and your family: With the DSA, you will have better tools to challenge the removal of content by tech giants, report illegal content or goods, and understand terms and conditions on online platforms. There will also be more transparency in advertising, and sensitive data use will be restricted.
- Responsibility by Design: To ensure responsible platform design and operation, I prioritised human oversight alongside algorithmic tools, as algorithms lack contextual understanding.
- More Choice: The DMA promotes competition among online platforms, giving you more choices for innovative services and the ability to switch platforms easily.
What did I do for you?
- With the Digital Services Act, we obliged platforms to fight hate speech and disinformation.
- I ensured demands on the platforms to have the necessary staff and technical means to run their services responsibly because platforms cannot rely on algorithms alone. After all, algorithms do not understand the context.
- Responsibility by Design by the platforms through the DSA.
We must continue to demand a swift and forceful enforcement of the DSA. This is the only way to fulfil the promise to our population that they can trust their online democracy and media.