A sigh of relief and hope was felt throughout Europe last week. With the European Commission's sanctions against Apple and Meta, Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera demonstrated that the EU is still the leading force in the world when defending and executing tech regulation. The message was clear: no matter where a company is from and who is running it, in Europe, you need to abide by the law.
These first steps in the enforcement of the Digital Markets Act must not make us lose focus. Today, our EU laws protecting citizens online remain under pressure. After US Vice-President JD Vance accused Brussels of “excessive regulation of AI” at France’s AI Summit, it was revealed that Washington put pressure on the European Commission to water down and postpone the General-Purpose AI Code of Practice, comprised in the EU’s AI Act.
The EU must not bow to blackmailing!
Elon Musk’s plans to pivot away from his US government position seems like good news, but we shouldn’t expect him or his tech cronies to lose influence. Zuckerberg has, on multiple occasions, indicated that deregulation in Europe is necessary to protect free speech from censorship – a stance that aligns with Trump’s foreign policy agenda.
The crude reality is that online interference in our European elections is part of the MAGA approach. We have recently seen how interference in our public debate is also coming from the West, in the form of a new conservative or even fascist agenda, which is pushed and promoted online. This happened recently with the AfD in Germany and is also currently unfolding in the Romanian presidential election.
The algorithms of the Big Tech Platforms are pushing and supporting harmful and extreme content, while suppressing the content made by quality media and journalists. There is even the suspicion that the algorithms on some platforms are not politically neutral. They are promoting extremist parties over the centrist forces that make up the basis of European democracy. One thing is certain: when it comes to the posts of Elon Musk, the X algorithm is biased. The same can go for the extreme right in Europe.
We cannot afford to let our guard down now. That is why, we keep urging Commission Vice-President Henna Virkkunen to rapidly conclude the investigation on X, TikTok and Meta under the Digital Services Act.
But the enforcement of our laws represents one of the crucial pillars to protect citizens from unsafe online environments. EU tech capacity building and providing alternatives should be the second one. We should look beyond the EU defence industry debate and realise that our total dependency on US and Chinese tech has become a liability. The EU must be equally swift when it comes to tech solutions and come up with innovative proposals.
A European social media platform based on EU values
We can put an end to exploitative and toxic business models that threaten not only mental health but also our democracies. If X, Meta and TikTok do not play by our rules and are damaging to our citizens, we need to consider a full suspension on these platforms, as happened in Brazil.
For this to work, we need to develop European alternatives that ensure citizens can still enjoy freedom of speech in a safe, inclusive and respectful online environment; one which guarantees that future social media ecosystems are not big machines benefitting at the expense of our democracies.
To this end, we call on the Commission to build a democratic European social media platform for trustworthy news and information that would centralise existing content from European public service media and licensed broadcasters.
This platform could serve as a common access point to a joint EU database of information, allowing citizens to find news and other content produced by publicly funded and licensed media in their own language.
On the other hand, the EU also needs to keep up with its digital legislation to fill the gaps left by the main digital laws approved in the last mandate such as the Digital Services Act or the AI Act. It has been proven, for example, that an increased use of social media and disinformation by the youth has an impact on anxiety, depression and self-esteem problems. This is what makes the adoption of the postponed Digital Fairness Act to set targeted rules on these crucial issues so important.
Investing in a European digital ecosystem
Last but not least, the EU should not overlook the importance of fostering competition and providing Europeans with a transparent, interoperable, accountable and democratic digital ecosystem. This would help reduce Europe's dependence on a handful of US tech oligarchs.
In this context, we would call for the launch of a Digital Sovereignty Fund from the EU Budget to build the European digital ecosystem. This could be done with European tax on digital companies such as Meta Platforms, Google and X to decrease the bloc’s dependence on US and Chinese social media platforms and broad-based cloud providers.
With more of our own resources, we will be able to create alternatives based on the EU values needed to protect our democracies and freedom of speech.
Besides new investments, we could use incentives for public procurement as a means to strengthen EU investment in European digital infrastructure, such as cloud operators.
We should never forget that we are a market of more than 440 million consumers. This is our strength, our advantage. Europe is not a land of power, but rather a land where we regulate to protect our citizens, especially the most vulnerable. The message is crystal clear: if international big tech companies want to continue making profit thanks to European consumers, they have to comply with our digital laws. Our response to continued attacks on the EU’s tech laws must be firm and decisive, but also innovative.
Alex Agius Saliba is a Maltese MEP and vice-president of the Socialists & Democrats for Digital Agenda. Laura Ballarín Cereza is a Spanish MEP and coordinator of the Socialists & Democrats on the committee on internal market and consumer protection. Last April, S&D MEPs put a set of proposals on the table to protect citizens online.
