Authorities in the EU and Britain built momentum on Tuesday for tougher oversight of the technology industry, as they introduced new regulations to pressure the world’s biggest tech companies to take down harmful content and open themselves up to more competition.
In Brussels, EU leaders unveiled proposals to crimp the power of “gatekeeper” platforms like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, which policymakers argue deserve more oversight given their outsize influence.
The proposed EU laws would require the companies to do more to prevent the spread of hate speech and sale of counterfeit merchandise, and disclose more information about how services like targeted advertising work.
In Britain, the government proposed banning some harmful Internet content like terrorism material, suicide videos and childhood bullying, which could result in billions of dollars in fines. Separately, Irish regulators announced a fine of 450,000 euros (about $547,000) against Twitter for violating EU data protection laws, one of the first penalties of its kind. The string of announcements on Tuesday helped reinforce Europe as home to some the world’s toughest policies towards the technology industry.
“The EU wants to be the leader in the tech regulation,” said Christoph Schmon, the international policy director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But the region is no longer alone in its efforts to limit the power of Big Tech. In the US, regulators sued Facebook last week for illegally squashing competition.
New York Times News Service