Ahead of this week’s (Thursday 20th Jan) plenary vote in the European Parliament on the Digital Services Act, organisations from a range of diverse sectors call on the European Parliament not to miss the opportunity to create a more trustworthy Internet:
In proposing the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU’s intention was to make online platforms and other internet intermediaries more accountable and to create a safer, better-functioning online environment. The text before the European Parliament plenary this week would not achieve this goal, unless improved with the voting of provisions proposed by a number of MEPs. In fact, without these proposed improvements it might even be a major step backwards.
Online platforms, hosting providers and other intermediaries should be subject to effective obligations to ensure they do not distribute or facilitate the distribution of illegal content. Some provisions in the Parliament’s IMCO text would roll-back already existing obligations, instead of strengthening them. Many of the advances made at European level in the last decade - which were already insufficient to properly protect European businesses and citizens – would be undone and the resulting legislation would sadly be out of date upon approval.
With the DSA, the EU institutions have the opportunity to show global leadership in shaping the online environment for the safety and benefit of all. We therefore call on MEPs to not bow to pressure from big tech to weaken the DSA and to instead seize the opportunity provided by the plenary vote to improve the text and take the lead on making online platforms more accountable and the internet safer for European citizens in the forthcoming trialogue negotiations.