Tech giants lobby EU not to hold them liable for illegal content
The biggest tech companies have called on the EU not to hold them liable for all content on their platforms, but have accepted that their efforts to remove illegal or harmful content could be regulated by a new European watchdog.
A lobby group that represents tech titans including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon has written to the EU Commission as it draws up a Digital Services Act to establish new rules for the sector.
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The letter – which comes amid growing scrutiny of how tech giants monitor content on their platforms – calls for both self-regulation and limited liability to continue.
Under current EU rules, platforms can self-regulate for all illegal material excluding terrorist content. They are also not held liable for illegal content that they are unaware of.
EDINA’s letter calls for both these principles to continue, as well as the creation of a new framework “that would enable and incentivise online service providers to do more to protect consumers from illegal content.”
In the letter, the lobby group argued that making tech firms liable for all content posted on their platforms could lead to firms that proactively uncovered illegal material being punished.
However it accepted that “that a new approach might require some form of oversight to ensure it is effective for internet users, to which private actors and public authorities can also contribute”.
“Our members understand and share the concern that people have about illegal and harmful content online and we want to do more to tackle this problem,” said EDIMA director general Siada El Ramly.
“We need rules that allow us to take more responsibility online and these rules should encourage, not discourage further action.”
Tech companies have come under sustained pressure in recent years to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content posted on their sites.
In 2018, the European Commission outlined issued an ultimatum to tech giants to remove illegal terrorist content within an hour, or risk breaching EU rules.
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In September last year, Werner Stengg, former head of the EU Commission’s ecommerce and platforms unit, warned that officials and companies remained unclear about the rules.
“Illegal content is not sufficiently addressed,” he said “No one knows what is hosted on online platforms, what content is not removed; we don’t know the scale of the problem.”