Yes, and it creates huge problems for the whole world when an arbitrary multi-billion dollar organisation can "impose rules on content moderation" and "privacy" with zero accountability while skirting local laws. Non-american countries should form a bloc and force them to be reasonable.
The tech companies are much more accountable than the EU. You can just not use Twitter. Nothing bad will happen to you. Good luck trying to just "not use" the EU if you happen to live there. That's much easier said than done.
Yes I concur /s. Don't use Google search. Don't use websites with Google Analytics. Don't use websites with Google Ads conversion tracking. Don't use Android phones. Don't send SMSes to android phones. Don't use YouTube. Don't use websites that embed YouTube. Don't use Chrome. Don't use gmail. Don't send email to gmail addresses. Oh yes, and I also don't use news media sites who monetise through Google adsense either.
Yes, I agree that the first DSA investigation targeting X obviously has more of a populistic bent due to Elon. But he's drawn a pretty good target on his own back including but not limited to firing the election integrity team [1] while the DSA clearly states that VLOPs have to do risk assessments before elections.
Honestly, American big tech has shown close to zero ability to self-regulate the externalities of their platforms, especially abroad, and especially in smaller countries.
If the consequence of this regulation is that American tech companies pull out of hard to serve European markets I wouldn't mind that one bit. That would open up markets for local competition closer aligned to their audience. Norway doesn't use Meta as the dominant messaging app because people like it. We use it because network effects creates unassailable moats, lock-in and network effects. Most people absolutely hate Meta and loathe Google - but we can't exactly not use them without it costing us greatly.
I'm happy to live here and the actions being done by the EU with GDPR, DSA and DMA are in my honest opinion critically needed as American-centric, free-market, "free-speech" norms are misaligned with other cultures in a way that foreigners would never understand without delving deep into a countries culture. Not just through naive metrics-driven technology scaling engagement at all costs. This is warping and killing culture, media environments, advertising ecosystems and political communication in the name of profit for a select few massive tech companies which aren't even taxing to the countries they're siphoning advertising budgets out of.
X is nothing special. The only reason there isn't another Twitter is because these markets mostly have room for one platform. If Twitter disappeared in Europe there'd be a local replacement in less than a year or two. And honestly it would probably be better.
"Regulate the externalities of their platform" is so weasel worded that it has broken into a henhouse. That just means "Unable to stop literally anything bad from happening as a side effect of their actions." Which if we are being remotely intellectually honest is an impossible hurdle.
> Unable to stop literally anything bad from happening as a side effect of their actions
That's neither what I said nor the stated goal of this regulation.
Theres tons of externalities ranging from increased political polarisation, mental health issues, increasing social isolation to the decimation of the traditional publishing sector. These socio-technical systems are some of the most complex ever built and we are barely scratching the surface of the challenges they are causing. It doesn't help that these platforms actively stop the collection of data on their platforms for research purposes (as they probably know it'll reflect poorly on them).
The platforms themselves have identified their content as a legitimate existential risk. Mostly due to how advertisers don't want to be affiliated with certain types of content. See the multiple rounds of demonitizations done by Google in the adpocalypse or Elsagate. Or Meta's crackdown on content post 2016/Brexit. Or Elon's current YOLO which has killed their advertising revenue.
The current status quo is that platforms govern their platform content through advertisers threatening to pull advertising budgets. I'd say you Americans are mildly crazy for regulating the reach of speech through informal negotiations by big advertisers and big tech, but it does sound on-brand for you guys. I find it pretty disgusting though, and I bet a lot of you Americans do too.
Anyways, the DSA in it's current form is largely revolves around increased transparency into data for researchers and mandated reporting processes around moderation decisions. More informed decision making can be made in the future while not relying exclusively on leaked documents from whistleblowers like Frances Haugen.
The EU's attempts to regulate these externalities impose literally impossible burdens on American tech companies. And similar attempts to do so with the AI Act are impossibly flawed and technically impractical. Conditionals keep on being added and added.
Do you know that Meta, Google, etc have to hire literally tens of thousands of people exclusively to keep up with EU regulations? And even then, it's not even possible, so the EU tosses massive fines (up to 20% of global revenue.) This is rent-seeking no matter how you cut it.
Perhaps if the EU had the barest shred of competency in developing modern consumer technology, it would understand. But wildly, regulators doggedly proceed ahead with simply absurd asks, not realizing that the EU tech industry is well and truly dead because of their actions. Let's not let them do the same to American tech.
The AI act I won't comment on as I'm not that well read on it and it's not been codified yet. I agree that some parts are more wishful thinking then others.
The belief that if EU removed their regulation a big tech sector would pop up is absurd libertarian propaganda. I'm not saying you believe that, but some people do. Norms, values and the insanity of scaling a business across 20+ languages are way bigger factors for why companies settle into local geographical maxima's. Try managing 3 different marketing agencies, 3 different websites, 3 different app languages. Imagine doing an A/B test on this and maintaining different winner variants across geographies. Congratulations you've just scaled to 20 million people in Norway, Denmark and Sweden. I deal with this everyday - it's horribly inefficient. I think that's the main factor hindering the European B2C tech sector. It's easier to just scale in the US.
This article is about the DSA so I'll stick to that.
> Do you know that Meta, Google, etc have to hire literally tens of thousands of people exclusively to keep up with EU regulations?
A platform serving billions of users needs thousands, if not tens of thousands of moderators. Hell even a forum with hundreds of users need a couple of moderators to keep things in check. Unmoderated platforms turn into self-destructive cesspools without exception.
Facebook and Twitter scaled to other countries with the wishful thinking that algorithmic moderation would scale. Turns out it doesn't. It was a risk they took while moving fast and breaking things and now they're cashing in their check.
The DSA in large parts revolves around transparency around how platforms are dealing with moderation. Did you know that Twitter only has one polish speaking moderator? Do you think that's enough for the 14 million MAUs they have? [1]
In Germany it's illegal to show nazi symbolism. It's also illegal to "harm someones reputation". In Norway the Sapmi ethnic population is a protected class. In Denmark you can't burn the Quran. This are real codified laws and preferences that a foreign company can't just ignore. And you have. There's thousands of examples and a decade of cases. There's a reason the entirety of Europe is standing together to do something about it - and it's not to seek a measly billion euros or five in fines.
While you may be ideologically or philosophically opposed to the "limiting of speech" you'll find that this varies wildly across cultures and across topics. Just because the US has laws and norms around "free speech" and "safe harbour laws" doesn't mean that other countries must be forced to be imposed these rules from American tech giants who put no or a marginal effort into following laws behind extremely opaque platforms with zero accountability.
When doing business in another country you follow their laws, it's as easy as that. If the cost of the fine is less then the cost of following the law it won't be followed. If the cost is too high to bear, it opens room for local competition who will follow the rules. That's fine. American tech can do whatever the hell they want in the US, that's not our right to influence.
We absolutely need to sanction this clusterfuck of an economic bloc. The EU contributes nothing to consumer technology (outside of ASML) and yet seeks rent on American companies.
