As things stand, what you can and cannot say on the internet is largely a matter for national law, decided by national parliaments. This means that every nation in Europe currently has different laws and practices.

The EU Digital Services Act sounds innocent on the surface. It is ostensibly aimed (in Euro-speak) at enhancing the so-called Digital Single Market by harmonising national laws and removing competitive barriers. Member states have not yet been consulted or made aware of any specific proposals in the Act. But thanks to the leak of an internal briefing to the Digital Single Market steering group, obtained German digital freedom activists Netzpolitik, we can see what Brussels has planned.

One of the EU’s key concerns, as the briefing makes clear, is the lack of EU-wide rules and regulations covering what people can see and say online. The fight against online hate speech, for example, is said to be ‘expensive and inefficient across the Single Market’. There are also no EU-wide rules on online advertising, nor does the EU have oversight of online services as a whole.

The prescription? EU regulation of the internet. EU law should cover the ‘entire stack of digital services’, from internet service providers (ISPs) and social media to search engines and cloud services. ‘Uniform rules for the removal of illegal content such as illegal hate speech’ need to be made binding across the EU, says the briefing. Online advertising, including political advertising, should come under EU control, too. And there must be a ‘dedicated regulatory structure to ensure oversight and enforcement of the rules’.

READ MORE HERE