Illustrative Image
Written by Piero Messina
George Orwell’s prophecy comes true. On August 25, the Digital Services Act came into force, the European regulation which formally aims to put online information in order, but which is actually a first substantial step towards censorship of free information. George Orwell had envisioned a Ministry of Reality. Brussels really created that structure. It will be up to the European Commission, without filters and without regulatory bodies, to establish what is true and what is false, establish what can be published and made available and what cannot.
Beyond the good intentions of the new regulation (if there are any), the Digital Services Act is a real European cleaver that affects information, with the possibility also of censoring, obscuring and even deleting the opinions of people who use the social media. In summary, the Digital Services Act is a measure that limits freedom in Europe. The policy objective of the European Commission is to stop “disinformation”. But who decides what is “disinformation” and what is not? Simple, the European Commission.
The EU provision entered into force in November 2022 and after a process to fine-tune the applications, it will become operational on 25 August. In any case, it will be binding throughout the EU by 1 January 2024. The regulation provides for the systematic control of user content by large platforms with “more than 45 million active users” in the EU (Google, Apple, Facebook , Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter, TikTok and the like). Tight control is imposed on the platforms (a condition that does not allow the real protection of the fundamental right to confidentiality of conversations). The Digital Services Act provides severe financial penalties, 6% of annual sales in case of repeated offenses for those who do not take action against illegal content and online disinformation. In fact, the EU imposes a block on online articles, posts and social comments. An unprecedented cleaver.
On the political level, the fundamental point is: who decides what is disinformation? The EU and various signalers, including private ones, considered “reliable”. As usual, the EU and its partners are considered reliable a priori. Ergo all content considered “disinformation”, even if proven and founded, can easily be censored. Not even newspapers, if they go online, are exempt from the EU’s axe.
A few examples are enough to understand how deeply this measure harms the right to free information. Today it would be considered disinformation, censored and deleted, the real news that the US and European allies bombed Iraq in 2003 even without evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Even criticizing the Italian government for its psychotic handling of the pandemic, also violating the Constitutional Charter and EU anti-discrimination rules, would be considered disinformation, censored and deleted. From 25 August, therefore, there will be only one narrative. Also and above all the news arriving from Central-Eastern Europe will be subjected to the scrutiny of Big Brother of Fortezza Europa. The Odessa massacre? It never happened.
The Digital Services Act provides for the exclusive assignment to the European Commission of the powers to supervise and implement measures towards platforms. There are also no third party or independent bodies.
It is quite evident that removing content deemed illegal or disinformation will produce a level of censorship never experienced before. The measure mainly affects journalists and commentators. In reality, despite the threat of financial penalties, the measure is not very severe with Big tech platforms. There is a reason. In recent years, on the eve of the adoption of the Digital Services Act, the expenses for lobbying operations at the European institutions of the large platforms have risen exponentially. The control of user profiling remains in the hands of the Big Techs. And that’s what matters.
