All posts tagged: Digital Services Act

US pressures Brussels to join AI chips club – POLITICO

US pressures Brussels to join AI chips club – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg on Monday piled pressure on Brussels to get on board. “Pax Silica is knitting together the trusted network the AI race requires. Europe belongs in that network. The question is whether Brussels will let it show up,” Helberg posted on X. Helberg is visiting Brussels this week as part of a European tour that includes the Netherlands, France and the U.K. The decision on whether the EU will join Pax Silica comes at a sensitive time in transatlantic relations, as the bloc considers how closely linked it wants to be with the U.S. on sensitive technologies including chips and gets ready to present a plan in May to reduce dependencies. In December, the Commission sent its ambassador to the U.S., Jovita Neliupšienė, to the Pax Silica launch summit to take part in sessions on critical minerals and economic security. Since then, the Commission has been in early-stage discussions with the U.S. Two EU countries, Sweden and Greece, have already signed up individually to the Pax …

Austria to ban social media for under-14s – POLITICO

Austria to ban social media for under-14s – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

The move comes as the EU and member countries are scrambling to find solutions to protect children from the harms of social media. Countries including Spain, France, Denmark and Portugal are already moving ahead with plans for age restrictions. Proponents argue that age-related restrictions setting a minimum age for the most addictive social media platforms are vital to protect children’s physical and mental health. Critics say that bans are ineffective and are detrimental to privacy because they require users to verify themselves online. Human rights adviser Michael O’Flaherty, the commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe, told POLITICO that bans are neither “proportionate nor necessary.” Source link

MEPs block tech firms from scanning for child sexual abuse material – POLITICO

MEPs block tech firms from scanning for child sexual abuse material – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

The center-right European People’s Party (EPP) mounted a last-ditch attempt to keep the scanning rules alive by filing an amendment to Thursday’s vote that would have aligned Parliament’s position with that of capitals. But lawmakers voted against the EPP’s suggested fix, deepening the rift between privacy proponents and child rights defenders. Leaders of Parliament’s political groups got a letter from four European commissioners on Wednesday, urging them to solve the issue and allow their members to break ranks in the crucial vote, POLITICO first reported. Merz, speaking in the country’s parliament on Wednesday, also called for the law to be extended. Large platforms Meta (which owns WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram), TikTok, Snapchat, Google, Microsoft and LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft) said in a joint statement last week that the EU’s inability to reach a deal was “irresponsible.” “Failure to act will reduce the legal clarity that has enabled companies for nearly 20 years to voluntarily detect and report known child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in interpersonal communication services,” the tech giants said, pushing for a solution …

From Hitler to ‘Pinocchio’: Germany’s speech laws collide with satire

From Hitler to ‘Pinocchio’: Germany’s speech laws collide with satire

Published by Sam Flores

When German historian Rainer Zitelmann reposted a photo of Adolf Hitler to warn against appeasing Russian President Vladimir Putin, he didn’t expect it to trigger a police probe. According to police, the problem was the image itself: Hitler was shown wearing a swastika armband — a banned symbol under Germany’s criminal code, which prohibits the public display of Nazi and other extremist insignia. Zitelmann was informed in February that authorities were examining the case. Zitelmann’s is just one of several recent investigations into online speech, which have raised questions about how far German authorities are going in enforcing strict speech laws — and whether efforts to curb extremism are colliding with satire and political criticism. Zitelmann said he posted the image as a warning, not an endorsement. Like Hitler, Putin cannot be trusted when he says he has no further territorial ambitions. “I’m usually against Hitler analogies,” he said. “They’re often inaccurate and used to discredit political opponents.”  But, he added, ”the parallels practically impose themselves.” A week earlier, a journalist found himself in a …

Spain’s Sánchez launches AI tool to track hate speech on social media – POLITICO

Spain’s Sánchez launches AI tool to track hate speech on social media – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Wednesday unveiled a new government AI tool that will rank social media sites based on how much hate speech they host. “If hate is already dangerous, social networks have turned it into a weapon of mass polarization that ends up seeping into everyday life,” Sánchez said at an International Summit against Hate and Digital Harassment. “Today social networks are a failed state,” he said. The new system, known as HODIO, will analyze large volumes of publicly available activity on social media to measure the scale and spread of online hate speech. The data will be used to track how hateful content evolves and spreads on platforms, and will feed into a public ranking comparing how much hate speech circulates on major networks. Source link

Macron asks Trump to lift sanctions on former EU tech chief Thierry Breton – POLITICO

Macron asks Trump to lift sanctions on former EU tech chief Thierry Breton – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

French President Emmanuel Macron has asked U.S. President Donald Trump to lift sanctions imposed last year on a raft of prominent Europeans including former EU tech chief Thierry Breton, arguing the measures were “unjustly imposed.” “I would like to personally draw your attention to the sanctions imposed by the United States against several European citizens, including two Frenchmen, Nicolas Guillou, judge at the International Criminal Court, and Thierry Breton, former European Commissioner,” Macron wrote to his U.S. counterpart in a letter sent last week, according to a report on Sunday by La Tribune. “I ask you to reconsider these decisions of your administration and to lift the sanctions unjustly imposed on Nicolas Guillou and Thierry Breton,” he added. Source link

Ireland launches ‘large-scale inquiry’ into Musk’s AI bot Grok – POLITICO

Ireland launches ‘large-scale inquiry’ into Musk’s AI bot Grok – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

It could trigger another fight between the U.S. and the EU over enforcement of Europe’s tech regulations. Top officials in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump blasted a move by the European Union in December to fine X €120 million over violations of the bloc’s content moderation rulebook, the Digital Services Act.  The Irish regulator is in charge of enforcing the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on many of the world’s tech giants that have their European headquarters in Ireland. It has the power to impose fines on X as large as 4 percent of global annual turnover. The Data Protection Commission “has commenced a large-scale inquiry which will examine compliance [of X’s international entity] with some of their fundamental obligations under the GDPR in relation to the matters at hand,” Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said. Doyle said the Data Protection Commission had been engaging with X since media reports about the sexualized deepfakes emerged “a number of weeks ago.” The European Commission in January launched an investigation into the Grok deepfakes under the …

How Europe could lose the war over Greenland – POLITICO

How Europe could lose the war over Greenland – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

“It’s no more combatting Russian trolls trying to hack the system. If pointed at the EU and Greenland, the disinformation campaigns on U.S. platforms become the system,” he said. Ripe for exploitation The relationship between Denmark and Greenland is particularly ripe for exploitation, said Signe Ravn-Højgaard, co-founder and CEO of Denmark-based Digital Infrastructure Think Tank, who conducted an analysis on the misinformation landscape in Greenland.   With a population the size of a Brussels municipality, news travels fast in Greenland and there are few media outlets that can debunk information. Most people rely on Facebook, said Ravn-Højgaard. With only a few shares, a fake news story can reach the entire population.   Organized foreign interference campaigns haven’t appeared in Greenland yet, but misinformation has been spreading. | Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP via Getty Images “It’s completely different from how it is in Denmark,” she said. If in a city of 20,000 people, 5,000 people believe something false, “it’s not a danger to the democracy of Denmark.” But in Greenland, “that would firstly, quickly spread to everyone, and secondly, it’s a large percentage of the population,” she said.   Organized foreign interference campaigns haven’t appeared in …

Von der Leyen’s management style ‘not good for Europe,’ says ex-commissioner – POLITICO

Von der Leyen’s management style ‘not good for Europe,’ says ex-commissioner – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

On U.S. relations, Schmit criticized the Commission for not publicly defending former commissioner Breton, who was handed a travel ban by Washington over what it views as unfair efforts to regulate American social media and tech giants. Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told POLITICO at the time that the College of Commissioners agreed to provide Breton with legal and financial support. Breton was the commissioner who pushed through and helped enforce the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a piece of regulation designed to enforce content moderation policies on large online platforms. Schmit said the laws that the U.S. is unhappy about — regulating digital services and digital markets — were adopted by all 27 commissioners, including von der Leyen, and not by Breton alone. Thierry Breton was the commissioner who pushed through and helped enforce the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a piece of regulation designed to enforce content moderation policies on large online platforms. | Olivier Hoslet/EPA “This is the point where we should have shown more solidarity and said ‘no, it’s not one, it …

5 things to know – POLITICO

5 things to know – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Which platforms will be banned? That decision will lie with France’s media authority Arcom, since the legislation itself doesn’t outline which platforms will or won’t be covered. The architect of the bill, Renaissance lawmaker Laure Miller, has said it will be similar to Australia’s and would likely see under-15s banned from using Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and X. Australia no longer allows children under 16 to create accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube. Australia’s list doesn’t include Discord, GitHub, Google Classroom, LEGO Play, Messenger, Pinterest, Roblox, Steam and Steam Chat, WhatsApp or YouTube Kids. Miller has also described plans to come up with a definition that could see the ban cover individual features on social media platforms. WhatsApp Stories and Channels — a feature of the popular messaging app — could be included, as well as the online chat within the gaming platform Roblox, the French MP said. Source link