Europe Escalates the Threat to Online Free SpeechWhile Americans debate what should be allowed on social media, the EU wants government to decide.
J.D. TUCCILLE
4.29.2022
It's easy to overstate, but attitudes towards freedom of action differ in the United States and the European Union. Americans tend to believe that people have a right to make their own decisions and are better trusted to do so than coercive governments; Europeans place more faith in the state, allowing room for personal choice only after officialdom installs guardrails and files away sharp edges. Yes, that exaggerates the case and there are plenty of dissenters under both systems, but it captures the treatment of speech and online conduct in the EU's new Digital Services Act.
"Today's agreement on the Digital Services Act is historic, both in terms of speed and of substance," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen commented on April 23. "The DSA will upgrade the ground-rules for all online services in the EU. It will ensure that the online environment remains a safe space, safeguarding freedom of expression and opportunities for digital businesses. It gives practical effect to the principle that what is illegal offline, should be illegal online. The greater the size, the greater the responsibilities of online platforms."
There's a lot in the proposed law, as you would expect of wide-ranging legislation paired with a companion bill addressing digital markets. The overall tone is of micromanagement of online spaces with dire consequences for platforms that fail to protect users from "illegal and harmful content" as defined by the government. Those who violate the rules by, for example, repeatedly failing to scrub forbidden material in timely fashion, face massive fines or expulsion from the EU market. Of course, no matter official assurances, speech hemmed in by red tape and subject to official oversight in monitored spaces isn't especially "free" at all, which is a contradiction recognized by critics.
"The DSA does not strike the right balance between countering genuine online harms and safeguarding free speech," Jacob Mchangama, the executive director of Copenhagen-based human-rights think tank Justitia, warns in Foreign Policy. "It will most likely result in a shrinking space for online expression, as social media companies are incentivized to delete massive amounts of perfectly legal content."
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Source:
https://reason.com/2022/04/29/europe-escalates-the-threat-to-online-free-speech/
