PARIS (Reuters) -The European Union will work towards an unprecedented regulation of social media platforms that will establish liability for hate-filled content, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday.
France takes over the rotating presidency of the 27-nation European Council in January at a time when the EU is discussing new legislation setting out the do’s and don’ts for global technology companies.
“This is unprecedented European regulation to fight online hate, to define the responsibility of these large platforms for their content,” Macron told a news conference in Paris.
“Every day, we have to deal with issues such as anti-Semitism, racism, hate speech and online harassment. There is no international regulation on these subjects today, strictly speaking.”
EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager has proposed two sets of rules known as the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act targeting Amazon, Apple, Alphabet unit Google, and Facebook.
The Digital Services Act in particular would force the tech giants to do more to tackle illegal content on their platforms, with fines of up to 6% of global turnover for non-compliance.
The European Commission will kick off negotiations with EU countries and EU lawmakers next year, with the new rules likely to be adopted in 2023.
(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel, additional reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; Editing by Silvia Aloisi and Mark Heinrich)
