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Digital EU Businesses

The EU's Digital Services Act Goes Into Effect Today 34

Posted by BeauHD from the PSA dept.
The European Union's Digital Services Act has gone into effect today, requiring tech giants to comply with sweeping legislation that holds online platforms accountable for the content posted to them. The Verge reports: The overarching goal of the DSA is to foster safer online environments. Under the new rules, online platforms must implement ways to prevent and remove posts containing illegal goods, services, or content while simultaneously giving users the means to report this type of content. Additionally, the DSA bans targeted advertising based on a person's sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, or political beliefs and puts restrictions on targeting ads to children. It also requires online platforms to provide more transparency on how their algorithms work.

The DSA carves out additional rules for what it considers "very large online platforms," forcing them to give users the right to opt out of recommendation systems and profiling, share key data with researchers and authorities, cooperate with crisis response requirements, and perform external and independent auditing. The EU considers very large online platforms (or very large online search engines) as those with over 45 million monthly users in the EU. So far, the EU has designed 19 platforms and search engines that fall into that category [...]. The EU will require each of these platforms to update their user numbers at least every six months. If a platform has less than 45 million monthly users for an entire year, they'll be removed from the list.

Online platforms that don't comply with the DSA's rules could see fines of up to 6 percent of their global turnover. According to the EU Commission, the Digital Services Coordinator and the Commission will have the power to "require immediate actions where necessary to address very serious harms." A platform continually refusing to comply could result in a temporary suspension in the EU.
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The EU's Digital Services Act Goes Into Effect Today More

The EU's Digital Services Act Goes Into Effect Today

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  • Digital (Score:5, Informative)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Friday August 25, 2023 @06:49PM (#63797308)

    Slashdot site owners clearly not understanding the DIGITAL logo.

    Is the EU running the services from PDP-11, VAX, or Alpha?

    • That's still far too new technology for US banks. I'd take C on an Alpha over COBOL on IBM junk any day.

  • Foster safer online environments (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mirnotoriety ( 10462951 ) on Friday August 25, 2023 @07:29PM (#63797416)
    “The European Union's Digital Services Act .. holds online platforms accountable for the content posted to them .. The overarching goal of the DSA is to foster safer online environments”

    Translation: Our owners want to control what we read online. Orwell would have been proud of the perversion of language.
    • The word “safe” is fast becoming the same kind of red flag as “for the children”. It means: we want control. It’s the Godwin of free speech.
      • You can thank US tech corporations for that. They have been pushing the boundaries of legality on the internet worldwide for years. Anything to make a profit, and to avoid paying taxes in foreign countries. Nothing to see here, the pendulum is just swinging back.
    • "Translation: Our owners want to control what we read online. Orwell would have been proud of the perversion of language" Orwell would've been saddened and disturbed that all of the things he WARNED about in his works are now coming to pass. A popular slogan was "1984 is a warning, not an instruction manual", but now it seems it is being used as an instruction manual, and people are starting to believe it was intended as such. :-\

    • Honestly given the state of modern discourse I don't think anyone will miss the internet if the government steps in and just shuts all the conversations down.

    • Re:Foster safer online environments (Score:5, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday August 26, 2023 @05:20AM (#63798172) Homepage Journal

      No, that's not what it is at all. At least bother to read it before invoking Orwell - one of the themes of his work was people not bothering to find the facts for themselves, and just blinding accepting what they were told. Or worse, just leaping to a conclusion that they had been primed to reach, without any prompting.

      The particular part of the Act you seem to be concerned about is a provision that large platforms (not smaller ones, only the very largest) are obliged to remove content after it has been verified as illegal and reported to them by national authorities.

      That is not really anything new. Nations have controlled what can be printed in newspapers and broadcast on radio and TV for centuries. Until now it's been a bit ad-hoc with internet services, with e.g. Facebook having different filters for German users than for others because of specific German laws covering Nazi glorification.

      The only accountability being added here is that platforms are required to respond promptly to requests. They can be challenged via the legal system, of course, but they can no longer take weeks to slowly process requests.

    • Common sense applies here (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Cward ( 10374574 ) on Saturday August 26, 2023 @06:59AM (#63798320)
      If you are a user of one of the large websites this applies to, then you are already owned by the folks who run said sites. If you use the Internet as originally intended by sharing information using services you host and operate individually, then this does not apply to you or the sites you operate one little bit. Even if you choose to use the web like the 2.0 days and stick to forums related to your interests, still none of this will apply to you or the administrators of said websites either.

      In a hypothetical scenario where a non-scummy independent website did somehow accrue over 45 million monthly users worldwide, you have a handful of options to avoid enforcement: 1) De-identify users as much as possible so they are not provably EU citizens. 2) Create separate, isolated websites per member state or country. 3) Decentralise the service layer, so that no individual legal entity is in control of enough users to qualify.

      This legislation does zero harm to Internet users but heaps plenty of responsibility upon the scum which are ruining it for commercial gain. At present there is only a handful of legal entities this applies to, and that is fantastic.

  • "Safer" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Malays2b0wen ( 10422574 )
    "The overarching goal of the DSA is to foster safer online environments" This never fully works as intended and the bad guys will always get around this without fail. The real issue is what causes extremism and other bad behavior in the first place. Inmates of prisons are restricted in their communications and everything is monitored and recorded and deeply inspected, but the gang shotcallers are still able to command their 'troops' on the street from their prison cells, at least in the US. Imagine how
    • If something is not totally 100% effectiveâ" the solution is to do nothing? All this talk of Orwellian government is laughable, concerning my government. They can barely mobilise a St Paddyâ(TM)s celebration, let along craft a multi-layered, inception-level conspiracy to manipulate the masses. In a social democracy, regulated capitalism isnâ(TM)t the bugbear that so-call âoelibertarianâ right wingers would have us all believe it is.
      • "All this talk of Orwellian government is laughable, concerning my government. They can barely mobilise a St PaddyÃ(TM)s celebration" This is normally done by local town and city governments. I imagine if a national government did this, they would be gritting their teeth and doing the absolute minimum while cursing under their breath. " let along craft a multi-layered, inception-level conspiracy to manipulate the masses. In a social democracy, regulated capitalism isnÃ(TM)t the bugbear that so
        • Don't forget that Wolfenstein 3D was banned in Germany because of the swastikas and nazis despite being a very anti-nazi game. So "illegal content" can be considered subjective in Germany and most likely other EU member countries.
          • Germany (and any EU member state) are free to enact laws ⦠as long as they donâ(TM)t contravene EU ones. Remember: every action taken by the EU is founded on treaties that have been approved democratically by its members. EU laws help to achieve the objectives of the EU treaties and put EU policies into practice. Each Member State has its own law and legal system, which can comprise both law at the national level and laws which are only applicable in a certain area, region, or city. Illegal
        • Limiting speech is nothing new. Our constitution is very specific in this matter: âoeYou have a right to freely express your convictions and opinions (Article 40.6. 1. i). However, that right can be limited in the interests of public order and morality.â So aligning with the confederacyâ(TM)s rules are not that much of a stretch. Its aim is to push big tech companies to better police online content and to open them up to more competitionâ"with regular oversight from regulators empowered
  • ...all big tech should block all EU countries from accessing them online. They should also terminate all licenses to software. See how much the EU countries like getting on without software and half the internet.

    • No, they should determine exactly how the EU arrives at that number, and then put a filter in place to prevent the 45000000th user onward from being able to use their service. I can just see ISP's having wars at 00:00.001 on the first of each month as they try to get all of their competitors blackholed.

      • Or create subsidiary companies, 1 for each 45M users. Offer shares on a host country stock xchg & try to get huge PE. Next, charge an unsustainable amount to license the SW (yearly) from the parent to the sub, effecting a value xfer from child to parent. Run it under, and repeat selling the assets (user accounts) from the dead sub to the next. Repeat. /s

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And that of course is why you are not a CEO. Cutting off half your most lucrative market share is a boneheaded move.

      • CEOs can recognise when governments are trying to eat their cake and have it.

        Not so long ago, the web "went dark" in protest at the proposed SOPA and PIPA laws. People noticed. The proposals were dropped and politicians distanced themselves.

        Canada made a law that said sites with news content sourced elsewhere would pay those sources for it. Sites stopped allowing their users to share external news content that they'd have to pay for. Then something bad happened and the Canadian government complained that th

        • CEOs can recognise when governments are trying to eat their cake and have it.

          Not so long ago, the web "went dark" in protest at the proposed SOPA and PIPA laws. People noticed.

          The vast majority of people didn't and for those who did most didn't care and just moved onto the next thing just like they moved to Facebook from MySpace, Reddit from Digg. People on /. are not representative of the vast majority of internet users.

    • They're not going to cut off the second richest market in the world after the USA which includes three (four including post brexit UK) of the richest countries in the world. Especially when the USA is also eyeing up similar legislation.
    • ok and when they revoke IP rights and take it anyway quoting 'national security' the share holders will cry and gp t court in america to try and get their money back.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Agripa ( 139780 )

      ...all big tech should block all EU countries from accessing them online. They should also terminate all licenses to software. See how much the EU countries like getting on without software and half the internet.

      Just shadow ban the offending material from within their borders. Just for safe measure, I would completely ban everything from a government IP address also; government employees should be working and not using social media.

  • ...already but nothing changed on their platforms. They promised that they were doing everything they could to prevent racism, misogyny, conspiracy theories, etc., but they weren't. They got warnings. They failed to read the room.

    Now the EU is going to fine them for not doing what they've been saying they've been doing. I bet it'll turn out that they actually can easily do what they've been saying was too difficult & risky (the usual FUD). Of course, they'll kick & scream & throw tantrums, lik
    • The doublespeak used by content creators to bypass demonetisation, as well as camera blurring, abstract use of emojis and colour-related tricks means that there is no realistic solution to automate moderation. Hiring humans does not help either, as many videos are now crafted in such a way as to technically avoid violating rules while conveying messages the intended audience will understand.

      I personally am in favour of the legislation, even knowing that it cannot possibly work, because it will encourage

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