EU DIGITAL SERVICE ACT – LEGISLATION AGAINST “DISINFORMATION”

DELA PÅ SOCIALA MEDIER

November 2019

EU wants to forbid disinformation and fake news on internet and on social media. EU is working on the Digital Service Act which will set the rules for internet within EU. EU consider conspiracy theories, “disinformation-campaigns” against the EU and alternative views on climate change to be disinformation.

EU LEGISLATION ON DISINFORMATION

The EU-Commission has begged Schibsted (a Norwegian international media group) to share its views on the regulations of social networks and internet. The topics were “tackling the negative consequences of social networks in the information ecosystem” and “tackling digital manipulation in Europe”. Schibsted says in its report that EU-regulations regarding internet and social media is on its way and will be a reality in the next couple of years. Schibsted themselves say that they are concerned over the spread of fake news but at the same time Schibsted fears that EU will come up with legislation on disinformation which is a concept which can be interpreted in negative ways.

digital service act_eu_censorship_social media — *The EU-Commission is working on legislation regarding internet and social media. All content that the EU consider to be disinformation will be stopped from uploading to platforms.*

EU DIGITAL SERVICE ACT

The site netzpolitik.org has revealed what says to be leaked document regarding the EU:s coming Digital Service Act (DSA). The documents states that the coming Digital Service Act from EU has the purpose to make a regulatory framework for all digital services in the EU single market and that includes ISPs, collaborative economy platforms, cloud hosting services, domain name services, block chain technology, content delivery networks. There will be new updated rules for social networks and search engines.

EU wants to forbid advertising online across borders on social media. When a new digital service is to be implemented within EU they want a trial period for monitoring. The Digital Service Act will harmonize the rules online to handle illegal hate speech, disinformation and illegal content. The document says that EU means that there is not enough incentives to tackle online harms so they want a platform regulator which could exercise effective oversight and enforcement such as content moderation and advertising transparency. They want monitoring and filtering technologies on the platforms that will take away illegal content. They want uniform and binding rules on removal of illegal content and hate speech across EU. A proposed Regulation could come as early as the end of 2020. The rules is to be implemented in what the EU calls the ” Digital Single Market”.

EU:

“Uniform rules for the removal of illegal content such as illegal hate speech would be made binding across the EU”.

digital single market_digital service act_eu_censorship — The EU-commission is working on a Digital Single Market where EU will set the rules for internet within EU. Disinformation such as conspiracy theories, alternative explanations on climate change and more will be forbidden. The IT-platforms will have upload filters that will stop any content the EU-Commission consider to be disinformation or hate speech. The picture above is from a meeting regarding the Digital Single Market. Speaker is EU-Commissionaire Mariya Gabriel which is leading in pushing restrictions on internet.

THE EU DEFINITION OF FAKE NEWS

EU gives some examples of what they consider to be disinformation:

Disinformation that interferes in democratic decision making within EU.
Conspiracy theories, such as 9/11, fake moon landing, anti-antisemitism, cultural Marxism, false flags, that the US created ISIS, Rothschild conspiracy,biological warfare labs.
“Recent studies suggest that conspiracy theories on global power and influence (that may fall on fertile ground among groups feeling marginalized) can work as a radicalizing multiplier which ‘feeds back into the ideologies, internal dynamics and psychological processes of the [extremist] group”.
Donald Trump’s views on the Russia collussion.
Disinformation on the war in Syria, the downing if MH-17, the use of chemical weapons in Salisbury attack (page 6).
Alternative explanations on global warming/climate change.
Geoengineering weapons (such as HAARP)
Climate conspiracy sites works for Russia (same link as above)

donald trump_climate change_ — *Alternative explanations on climate change is disinformation according to EU. Does that mean that Trumps statements will be removed?*

conspiracy theories_eu_disinformation ole dammegard — *EU-Commission consider stories about false flag to be disinformation and must be stopped.*

Video above: EU-Commission says that refugees, Muslims and the LGBT-movement are the targets of hate speech. Since 2016 the EU-Commission is working with IT-platforms to remove hate speech online. 72 % of the content that the EU considered to be illegal has been removed. EU-Commissionaire Věra Jourová is satisfied with the results. The EU also helps this platforms to combat fake news.

MORE ON EU AND ITS INTERNET RESTRICTIONS

This is not the first time the EU is creating restrictions and regulations on internet in order to “protect” us.

In 2014 the EU managed to create a rule called “the right to be forgotten”. In short this means that if a person encounter information on the web regarding himself and the person thinks that this information is “improper, irrelevant, needless or is lacking “public interest” he can force the search engines to take away the links to that specific homepage. The right to be forgotten is included in GDPR. You can read more here.
The EU Copyright Directive is on its way which means upload filters on social platforms that will stop videos, pictures etc from being uploaded to social media without the copyright-holders agreement. It also means that platforms must pay money to mainstream media company every time they link to them.
Code on Practice on Disinformation means that tech platforms must report to the EU-Commission on what measures that have taken to get rid of “fake news” on their platforms. Facebook says in a report to the Commission that they been active in taking away “misinformation” about vaccine and this is probably the reason why it’s almost impossible to find any anti-vax groups on Facebook these days
The Terrorism Directive orders platforms to get rid of material that EU consider to be “terrorist content“. The platforms have one hour to get rid of the material.
The EU Directive for Audiovisual Media Services (AVMSD) says that video-sharing platforms must take down “harmful content“, “hate speech” and “terrorism related content”. This directive will be implemented in national legislation by autumn 2020 and will be“a test for regulation the liability of social networks”.

Some quotes from the EU-Commission:

“Online platforms should do their utmost to proactively detect, identify and remove illegal content online. The Commission strongly encourages online platforms to use voluntary, proactive measures aimed at the detection and removal of illegal content and to step up cooperation and investment in, and use of, automatic detection technologies”.

“Some voluntary processes such as the Code of Conduct on countering illegal hate speech online have provided indicative targets for removal times, in the case of this Code of Conduct, 24 hours for the majority of cases”.

“THE GEORGE SOROS CONSPIRACY”

Video above: Europeans Union Ms. Katharina von Schnurbein at her speech at UN in 2019. The EU wants to forbid “conspiracy theories”.

Katharina von Schnurbein:

“An unholy alliance of neo-Nazis, Islamists and far-left extremist joint in believing in a Jewish conspiracy that is controlling governments, the economy and the media. They call their enemies Rothschilds, Soros, Zionists or the Jewish state. In December 2018 all EU member states unanimously adopted a Council declaration on combating Antisemitism and protecting Jewish communities. As a result, national strategies on antisemitism should be adopted by the end of 2020. Protecting freedom of expression is an essential value gained in democracies which we have to defend against those that exploit this right by inciting hatred and violence”.

“In contrast to many other parts of the world EU has legislation that criminalize speech inciting hatred and violence, including Holocaust denial and distortion. In 2016 the EU-Commission pioneered the way and concluded a voluntary Code of Conduct with all big IT-companies such as Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft and Twitter in which they commit to take down flagged illegal hate speech within 24 hours in Europe. Three years on the Code of Conduct is delivering. While less then one-third of illegal hate speech was removed when we started, today almost three quarters of it are removed”.

“We know that hate speech can lead to hate crimes. All recent tragedies, in Paris, Pittsburgh, Poway, Sri Lanka or Christchurch have in common that the internet and social media played a role in radicalizing the perpetrators. Therefore the EU-Commission has proposed legislation recently that will oblige tech companies to to remove terrorist content within one hour by order of public authority. Companies will be liable across the EU for non-removal”.

Photo:

User:Verdy p, User:-xfi-, User:Paddu, User:Nightstallion, User:Funakoshi, User:Jeltz, User:Dbenbenn, User:Zscout370 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/. Licens. 2.0

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eu2017ee/licence 2.0

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ipankonin. Licence 3.0