Irish Examiner View: EU laws on social media a long time coming

The new EU rules on social media have been described as groundbreaking legislation.

Twitter owner Elon Musk has been warned that his company is not ready for the new rules. Picture:

It has long been a source of frustration and anger that the big social media companies appear to be uncontrollable when it comes to protecting children, preventing misogyny, stopping consumer fraud and hate speech, protecting democratic elections, and curbing disinformation.

The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) were agreed politically by member states last April, and the new rules imposed on social media companies came into force last month. The first obligation of these platforms and search engines, to publish user numbers, will come into force in February.

Thereafter they will be designated into very large online platforms and very large online search engines, and the companies concerned have a maximum period of four months to comply with the new rules, including publishing and risk assessment. By February 2024, the DSA rules will apply to all regulated entities and it is also a deadline for all EU states to establish national digital services co-ordinators.

This has been described as groundbreaking legislation which will set a worldwide standard for content regulation and the protection of users from online harm.

Twitter fears

Already, Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, has been warned that his company is not ready for the new rules. Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner overseeing the legislation, has told Musk he has a lot of work on his hands to ensure Twitter complies with the laws.

In the wake of Musk’s suspension — albeit temporary — of a number of high-profile journalists, the European Commission’s vice-president for value and transparency, Věra Jourova, reminded Musk that the DSA requires “respect of media freedom”. 

Violating the DSA rules will mean penalties imposed on violators, including the threat of fines up to 6% of global turnover or, in the most serious of cases, a temporary suspension of the service.

The EU can also demand that sites take immediate action to deal with problems, and users will be able to seek compensation for damage caused to them.

It seems such regulations have been a long time coming, not only for the giants of social media, but those who use it for nefarious purposes. But the fact the companies themselves have to be self-policing is long overdue and very welcome.