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Join on Telegram Rabat – The global fight against online misinformation and hate speech has reached a new milestone with the European Union approving a new legislation Saturday morning.
The new law is set to increase scrutiny over big tech companies and hold them accountable for what goes on under the nose of their algorithms.
Under the new law, tech giants such as Google and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, will come under greater pressure to moderate the content on their platforms to protect European users from misinformation and hate speech.
After long deliberations that started on Friday, the European Union finally passed the Digital Services Act on Saturday morning.
Tech giants operating in the EU are under legal obligations to make it easier for users to flag problems. In addition, the Digital Services Act bans all ads targeting kids.
Most importantly, the act offers lawmakers the proper tools to reinforce these regulations. If they fail to adhere to these regulations, tech companies could face billions in fines.
“With the DSA, the time of big online platforms behaving like they are ‘too big to care’ is coming to an end,” EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said.
“With today’s agreement we ensure that platforms are held accountable for the risks their services can pose to society and citizens,” EU Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager added.
The cost of online misinformation and hate speech
Since 2016, calls to address online misinformation have gained significant traction, as the world came to realize the magnitude of the threat that misinformation poses.
While it’s hard to find conclusive evidence, a large body of existing evidence strongly indicates that many international calamities originated within extremist online communities, starting with the 2016 Rohingya Muslim massacre in Myanmar.
In 2021, activists in the US and UK filed a multi-billion lawsuit against Facebook claiming that the platform failed to prevent the widespread misinformation that had eventually led to the massacre.
In fact, evidence suggests that social media algorithms systematically optimize violent, and hateful content as it tends to have a higher engagement rate among users.
Facebook had previously denied knowledge of the misdeeds of its algorithms. However, leaked documents from Facebook and a whistleblower testimony in late 2021 suggested otherwise.
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