amount to billions of dollars. Repeat offenders
could be banned from the EU, he said.
The tentative agreement was reached between
the EU parliament and the bloc’s member states.
It still needs to be officially rubber-stamped
by those institutions, which is expected after
summer but should pose no political problem.
The rules then won’t start applying until 15
months after that approval, or Jan. 1, 2024,
whichever is later.
“The DSA is nothing short of a paradigm shift in
tech regulation. It’s the first major attempt to set
rules and standards for algorithmic systems in
digital media markets,” said Ben Scott, a former
tech policy advisor to Hillary Clinton who’s now
executive director of advocacy group Reset.
The need to regulate Big Tech more effectively
came into sharper focus after the 2016 U.S.
presidential election, when Russia used social
media platforms to try to influence voters.
Tech companies like Facebook and Twitter
promised to crack down on disinformation, but
the problems have only worsened. During the
pandemic, health misinformation blossomed
and again the companies were slow to act,
cracking down after years of a llowing anti-
vaccine falsehoods to thrive on their platforms.
Under the EU law, governments would be able
to ask companies take down a wide range of
content that would be deemed illegal, including
material that promotes terrorism, child sexual
abuse, hate speech and commercial scams. Social
media platforms like Facebook and Twitter would
have to give users tools to flag such content in an
“easy and effective way” so that it can be swiftly
removed. Online marketplaces like Amazon