While the media industry is waiting eagerly to see which digital and media-political positions the expected traffic light coalition will agree on, the executive federal government still has a not insignificant task to deal with today: the Federal Chancellery, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Economics agree on what the Federal government says about the "Digital Services Act" planned by the EU Commission.
With this law, the Commission wants to make global digital corporations such as Google and Facebook accountable throughout the EU.
That sounds good, but there is a risk that the Commission, with its unfortunately accustomed vanity, will take over and destroy existing and functioning structures of media control.
The federal government - the present and the future - can set an example against this.
EU Commission wants control
The EU Commission has two things in mind, both of which point in the right direction because they hold platforms liable for the content they distribute and their consequences. The Commission wants to subject the digital giants to the rules of fair competition - the "Digital Markets Act" (DMA) provides this - and integrate them into the general political legal framework of the EU - the "Digital Services Act" (DSA) aims to do this. The permanent representatives of the EU member states have just approved the draft for the “Digital Markets Act” without exception.
For both laws, which go through the so-called trialogue process between the Commission, the EU Parliament and the EU member states, the following applies: The Commission wants control. She wants to take control of the enforcement of both laws and disempower national supervisory bodies. In doing so, however, it only has the claim to power, but not the apparatus to enforce the laws across the EU.
In the member state of Germany, on the other hand, there are functioning supervisory institutions - the Federal Cartel Office, which is currently dealing with Google and Facebook in separate proceedings, and the state media authorities.
In cooperation with the media controllers of other EU countries, they have begun to hold the platform groups internationally liable for the content they distribute, especially those that deal with criminally relevant matters.
The association of media supervisors, the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media (ERGA), recently pointed this out, following the motto: A digital basic order in Europe must “strengthen - and not hinder, cooperation between national media regulators”.
"Bureaucratic and inefficient structure"
Why is the EU Commission threatening to undo the successes achieved? "The DSA proposal provides a structure that would place every single - of possibly thousands - cross-border cases in the hands of the newly created Digital Services Coordinators," says Tobias Schmid, Director of the State Media Authority in North Rhine-Westphalia, Chairman of ERGA and European Commissioner Media companies. These EU coordinators would “come together in the so-called Digital Services Board, made up of 27 nations and the European Commission. We are concerned that this bureaucratic and inefficient structure could jeopardize the success of the European DSA project. But it is still not too late to correct this in the interests of effective protection of the population, ”says Schmid.
The state media authority of North Rhine-Westphalia shows that the state media authorities not only - like the EU Commission - thump slogans and flex muscles that they do not have, but also act against legal violations. Since the beginning of this year, in addition to human, ultimately decisive control, it has been using artificial intelligence to detect illegal content on the Internet. When asked by the FAZ, this tool was used to identify more than 13,300 cases in eight months. Of these, more than 8,200 were checked and legal violations were confirmed in more than 6,400 cases - on social platforms as well as on websites. The cases concerned, as it is said, all of the areas of youth protection, development impairment, sedition or the use of the symbols of anti-constitutional organizations.The AI application from North Rhine-Westphalia should soon also be able to be used by the other state media authorities, and requests for the tool have been received, as it is said, from Belgium, France, Italy, Austria and Spain.
The detection of illegal content is therefore picking up speed. Because of such content, it should not be forgotten that the still-in-office federal government launched the network enforcement and defended it against all the empty warning calls of censorship and total control on the Internet, which the corporations themselves and their accomplices in particular have spread. Anyone who really wants to do something against lawlessness, hatred, hate speech and crime on the Internet should make sure that not only a legal basis, but also effective law enforcement is required. The executive federal government should think about this and the future federal government (whose coalition members are said to have, as you can hear, first agreed to switch off VHF radio by 2029) should also pay attention to this.What the EU Commission wants is one thing. What the EU Commission may do is something different. And what she intends to do with her “Digital Services Board” could - by the way - also violate German constitutional law. The planned EU supervision is not organized “outside the state”. But this is forbidden according to the principles of local media law.