EU passes historic law to hold social media sites accountable for illegal content

[AZProgressive]

The European Union approved new legislation that would pressure big tech giants like Meta, Google and Twitter to enforce illegal content on their platforms or potentially risk paying billions in fines.

After some 16 hours of negotiations, the EU reached a deal early Saturday in Brussels on the Digital Services Act, a landmark law requiring companies to more aggressively police their content and take down anything deemed harmful or illegal quickly.

"Our new rules will protect users online, ensure freedom of expression and opportunities for businesses," EU President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted. "What is illegal offline will effectively be illegal online in the EU. A strong signal for people, business & countries worldwide."

The historic vote comes more than a year after the EU presented the Digital Services Act (DSA) and a Digital Markets Act (DMA), which the EU approved last month and seeks to curb big tech's marketing power, to the European Parliament. The EU said the legislation is the first in the world to target digital regulation.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2022/04/22/european-union-law-meta-facebook-google/7419892001/

[secondwind]

1. Fantastic news!!! The US and other countries need to follow suit......

[VarryOn]

2. I'd sell any stock of online content providers...

There is no way a company can totally prevent potentially harmful content. No matter what's posted, someone will get their panties in a wad.

The internet, until now, was good. One, now, has a very, very narrow window of opinion to express a contrarion thought. Anything illiberal, I suppose.

All good things must come to an end.

[leftstreet]

4. +1

[BigmanPigman]

3. This is a must for the US to do ASAP

or we will lose our country in record time. It already may be lost but this would help keep it afloat.