Macron: EU to draft regulation to combat hate in social media
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French President Emmanuel Macron will deliver a speech during a press conference on France’s assumption of the EU Council Presidency in Paris, France, on December 9, 2021. Ludovic Marin / Pool via REUTERS
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PARIS, Dec 9 (Reuters) – The European Union will work towards unprecedented regulation of social media platforms that will establish liability for hateful content, French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday.
France will take on the rotating presidency of the 27-member European Council in January, at a time when the EU is debating new laws containing do’s and don’ts for global tech companies.
“This is an unprecedented European regulation to combat online hatred to define the responsibility of these major platforms for their content,” Macron said at a press conference in Paris.
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“We have to deal with topics such as anti-Semitism, racism, hate speech and harassment on the Internet on a daily basis. Strictly speaking, there are no international regulations on these topics today.”
EU competition boss Margrethe Vestager has proposed two sets of rules, known as the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, which refer to Amazon (AMZN.O), Apple (AAPL.O), Alphabet (GoogL.O), Google Unit and Facebook (FB .) direct .Ö).
In particular, the Digital Services Act would force tech giants to do more against illegal content on their platforms, with fines of up to 6% of global sales for non-compliance.
The European Commission will start negotiations with EU countries and EU lawmakers next year, with the new rules expected to be adopted in 2023.
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Reporting by Tassilo Hummel, additional reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; Editing by Silvia Aloisi and Mark Heinrich
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