‘The rules are getting tighter near Europe.’
The European Union (EU), which is actively pursuing measures to combat illegal content, received a new light when its lawmakers passed new legislation on April 23.
Through the Digital Services Act (DSA) introduced, technology companies that fail to comply with EU content regulations on their platforms can be fined 6% of total annual sales by 2024.
In addition, if found to continue in violation of the law, then they could be banned from doing business in Europe.
The DSA also underlined that platforms with more than 45 million users will have to comply with stricter rules by paying a supervision fee of 0.1% of their global annual revenue, in addition to having to provide annual reports on illegal and dangerous content on their platforms.
For the record, the law has been enacted by EU Antitrust Strategy Chief Margrethe Vestager to curb content by technology companies such as Google’s Alphabet Inc, Meta Platform Inc, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft deemed dangerous or illegal.
It was introduced to protect consumers, especially children and safeguard sensitive data such as religion, gender, race and political opinion.
In addition, it is hoped to prevent the spread of ‘dark patterns’, a technique that confuses the public to provide personal data to companies.
In the meantime, Google is seen supporting the DSA by issuing a statement stating that they will work with lawmakers to ensure that the rules can be implemented.
