EU to initiate controversial digital platform reforms
7642 Mins Read
A significant, and politically-sensitive revolution in EU regulation is expected to be kicked off this afternoon by the European Commission.
The EU’s executive branch will be launching a public consultation on a digital platform regulation — a process that European officials expect will generate wide-ranging and divergent responses from businesses, governments and the general public.
This will trigger the first re-writing of regulations in the digital sphere for 20 years, and is bound to happen at a sensitive time, particularly as Mark Zuckerberg, faced criticism by some of his employees at Facebook on the handling of Donald Trump’s social media posts. In parallel, the current coronavirus pandemic has accentuated the risks associated with fake news and misinformation.
According to the Financial Times, the consultation will focus on responsibility, asking the question of how responsible should the big social media platforms be for the content placed on their sites. The same applies for products placed online, with thousands of Internet users still fuming after being tricked into buying faulty medical products which were not according to the necessary health standards, to protect against the novel coronavirus.
Yet, this will not be easy. Ebay, for example, is a very popular marketplace, with users selling to each other without the company coming in touch with the product. In this context, many will certiainly push the argument that Ebay cannot be responsible for a product it has not even seen..
So far platforms can take action on a voluntary basis, but no regulations are in place on the matter. However, at least, EU regulators will push for platforms to make a bigger effort at removing rogue traders.
“Platforms don’t have a lot of incentives to do such checks because ultimately they make money on commissions, an official who spoke to the FT said.
The consultation will also seek ways into curbing the expansion and power of the giant tech companies, such as Google and Facebook, particularly by forcing them to share data with smaller entities, in order to ensure that the latter are not precluded from securing access to the digital market.
