The text, which has been discussed for almost a year and a half, must make the very large digital platforms, such as Facebook (Meta) or Amazon, responsible, by forcing them to better fight against illegal content and to cooperate with the authorities.

Representatives of EU institutions met shortly after 10 a.m. in Brussels.

They hope to reach an agreement on Friday evening on this flagship project which has sparked intense lobbying by tech giants and heated debates on freedom of expression.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) is one of the two parts of a major plan presented in December 2020 by the Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, and her counterpart in the Internal Market, Thierry Breton.

The first part, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which tackles anti-competitive practices, was concluded at the end of March.

The DSA updates the e-commerce directive, born 20 years ago when the giant platforms were still embryonic.

Objective: to put an end to areas of lawlessness and abuse on the Internet.

Pedestrians in front of the headquarters of the European Community in Brussels on September 23, 2021 Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD AFP / Archives

"What is prohibited offline must be prohibited online," Thierry Breton tweeted on Friday.

The excesses of social networks have often hit the headlines.

Assassination of history professor Samuel Paty in France, after a hate campaign in October 2020, assault of demonstrators on the Capitol in the United States in January 2021, partly planned thanks to Facebook and Twitter...

The dark side of the Internet also concerns sales platforms overrun with counterfeit or defective products, which can be dangerous, such as children's toys that do not meet safety standards.

The new regulation stipulates the obligation to “promptly” remove any illegal content (according to national and European laws) as soon as a platform becomes aware of it.

It forces social networks to suspend users who "frequently" violate the law.

The DSA will oblige online sales sites to verify the identity of their suppliers before offering their products.

"Crossing the Finish Line"

At the heart of the project, new obligations imposed on "very large platforms", those with "more than 45 million active users" in the EU, i.e. around twenty companies, the list of which remains to be determined but which will include Gafam (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft), as well as Twitter, and probably TikTok, Zalando or Booking.

A Google logo at a company office in Berlin, Germany, January 22, 2019 Tobias SCHWARZ AFP/Archives

These players must themselves assess the risks associated with the use of their services and put in place the appropriate means to remove problematic content.

They will be imposed increased transparency on their data and recommendation algorithms.

They will be audited once a year by independent bodies and placed under the supervision of the European Commission, which may impose fines of up to 6% of their annual sales in the event of repeated infringements.

The DSA should, for example, mandate the removal of images used for "revenge porn" and prohibit the use without consent of data on political opinions for advertising targeting purposes.

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged her support for the project on Thursday evening.

"For too long, tech platforms have amplified disinformation and extremism without accountability...I urge our transatlantic allies to get the Digital Services Act across the finish line and support global democracy before it's too late," she wrote on Twitter.

The American whistleblower Frances Haugen, who denounced Facebook's passivity in the face of the nuisances of its social networks, had praised in November the "enormous potential" of the DSA which could become a "benchmark" for other countries, including United States.

The Federation of European Consumer Associations (BEUC), however, fears that the text does not go far enough, especially in online sales.

It considers it essential that merchant sites be required to carry out random checks on the products of their suppliers.

© 2022 AFP