MEPs discuss social media platform regulation and the role of the Digital Services Act in protecting democracy and freedom online. The debate with the Commission focus on the enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which has applied to all platforms since February 2024.

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

SCHWAB, Andreas (EPP, DE)

VESTAGER, Margrethe (DK, CE)

SCHALDEMOSE, Christel (S&D, DK)

KELLEHER, Billy (Renew, IE)

VAN SPARRENTAK, Kim (Greens/EFA, NL)

digital services act (T)

MÜLLER, Piotr Józef (ECR, PL)

Global measures towards social media platforms, strengthening the role of Digital Service Act and protecting democracy and freedom in the online sphere: extracts from the debate

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, and Commissioner for Competition, So let me start with the principles of the Data Services Act. Is the overarching law for the responsibility of all online platforms towards our citizens, towards society overall. The Digital Services Act is an unprecedented regulatory framework based on the founding values of this very Union. These are human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law and the respect of human rights. And, contrary to deliberate misunderstandings of this piece of legislation, it does not regulate content. It does not restrict free speech.

SOUNDBITE (German), Andreas SCHWAB (EPP, DE), This shows just how quickly things are developing in the digital age and just how slow our reactions are to that. So, Commissioner, it's very important to speed up implementation and the new Commission must do this to put more stuff into it as well. And this has been shown in the DSA. This needs to be dealt with successfully in all areas. There are a whole number of issues that people have mentioned protecting young people, protecting democracy.

SOUNDBITE (English), Christel SCHALDEMOSE (S&amp;D, DK), Under the S&amp;D leadership with the DSA, we won the first fight between law makers and social media, and we ended the Wild West online. For the first time, social media platforms in Europe are now liable for their algorithms. They must not become a megaphone for illegal content, for disinformation or harm public health. But in order to make sure that this also is the real life out there, we call upon the Commission to really take on the role as the sheriff of this new online world. We really need to make sure that we use the tools we granted the Commission by the DSA. We need to make sure that we have a strong implementation and a strong enforcement.

SOUNDBITE (English), Billy KELLEHER (Renew, IE), Last month, violence erupted on the streets of Belfast in Ireland. It was encouraged and spurred on by the comments of the owner of X, Elon Musk. His comments were about "civil war", I believe, a deliberate attempt to ratchet up the rhetoric and antagonize people. As a liberal, I will defend a person's right to freedom of speech, expression and their fundamental rights. However, as a democrat, I cannot support the right of a person to incite hate or violence and undermine our democratic system with misinformation and disinformation for nefarious motivations. This is the challenge we as parliamentarians face to balance these two often competing objectives. We are not the United States. There are no First Amendment rights. There are no universal rights to freedom of speech. We need to be very careful in the weeks and months ahead that nefarious actors do not use social media platforms under the guise of free speech to undermine our democratic ...

SOUNDBITE (Polish), Piotr Józef MÜLLER (ECR, PL), We need to look very closely at what the European Commission is doing and what the social media networks are doing in the context of the DSA. The objective is to protect democratic societies against potentially malevolent attempts to exert influence on. Commissioner Breton was in charge of the implementation of this package and he has, of course, resigned from the Commission. But that notwithstanding, this preventive censure approach is something which is very problematic. As I said, we've seen this in Central and Eastern Europe. And once again, we see that preventive censure has come to the fore.

SOUNDBITE (English), Kim VAN SPARRENTAK (Greens/EFA, NL), Big social media platforms have become our main space for public debates. And because we did nothing for a very long time, the algorithms of a few powerful, money hungry corporations are now the referees of this debate. And their only goal is to keep us on line as long as possible. But last year the DSA entered into force and we hoped we would see a big change: that content deemed too queer wouldn't be taken down without notice, that harmful disinformation wouldn't be spread all over the place and people would no longer be dragged into extreme content. But this is what makes these companies the most money, so we hardly see any change. We clearly need to strengthen the DSA, starting with the code of practice on disinformation. It needs to be more concrete and enforceable. And let's finally tackle the recommendation systems that are based on clicks and interaction because they suck people into swamps of radical content, disinformation and misogyny.