17/7/26
The EU Commission has finally started to enforce the EU’s digital legislation, the Digital Services Act (DSA). A welcome, yet long overdue effort to live up to its constitutional obligation to protect our online rights as EU citizens. What is concerning, however, is the fact that the Commission seems fine with only enforcing parts of our online rights against a small number of social media platforms. This has us questioning:
Why does the Commission give itself praise for only enforcing half of the DSA across a mere handful of Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs)?
It may be hard to believe in our fast-paced AI times, but according to EU law, our online rights are as protected as our rights offline. We have all become strangely accustomed to online abuses of our rights being condoned by our representative officials. But whether somebody profits from stealing our personal data online or from simply creating addictive products for teenagers, such actions are just not allowed. Full stop!
So, the effort to protect our online rights appears to have started last Friday with the news that the EU Commission is looking into the addictive elements of Instagram and Facebook. While it is good that parts of the DSA are being implemented, the main question remains unanswered: On what legal, institutional, or policy grounds does the Commission prioritise certain provisions, such as systemic risks under Articles 34 and 35, while leaving others effectively dormant? This is especially true regarding the right of citizens to access a non-profiling option for recommender systems, an obligation explicitly mandated by Article 38 of the DSA.
If you are not satisfied, as we are, with the partial enforcement by the Commission, then we would like to draw your attention to Article 53 of the DSA: you have the right to file a complaint with your national coordinator. Yet, before such efforts should be made, we would like to hear from the designers of the DSA, MEPs Christel Schaldemose (S&D) and Alexandra Geese (Greens/EFA), about how they feel regarding this partial enforcement of our online rights?
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)