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EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

bbc.com

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Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#71

Post by ericra »

[Original Source Press Release](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...)

I found this bit promising:

"Concretely, the Digital Markets Act will:

- Prohibit a number of practices which are clearly unfair, such as blocking users from un-installing any pre-installed software or apps; "

I'm curious about what other "clearly unfair" practices they are referring tho, but this alone could have implications for potentially getting rid of bundled applications on Android phones, as an example. This assumes that the clause extends to the Android operating system as it is installed on devices made by manufacturers possibly not regulated under these Acts.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#72

Post by jariel »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #8
Majestic121 wrote: post #6

A interesting point missing from the BBC article is that they have different levels of expectations between small to medium businesses and large ones, to avoid regulatory capture ? : > Platforms that reach more than 10% of the EU's population (45 million users) are considered systemic in nature, and are subject not only to specific obligations to control their own risks, but also to a new oversight structure. Another…

> A interesting point missing from the BBC article is that they have different levels of expectations between small to medium businesses and large ones, to avoid regulatory capture ? : It's easy to overlook, but the BBC article does have this line: > It introduces a sliding scale, under which firms take on more obligations the larger and more influential they are. > Another interesting tidbit is the answer to the com…

I think you have the FB issue upside down. Do you think the EU is interested in 'free speech'? No, the EU want to make sure that they able to suppress language they don't like. In some cases, it's probably for the common good, but in many others ... not so much.

The EU, US and other actors definitely want FB et. al. to suppress information which they deem as 'factually innacurate' (things that can sway elections, scare people away from vaccines etc.) in addition to a few other points of interest, for example, things they deem 'hate speech' etc..

Edit:

Personally - I'm not sure how I feel about any of it really, but it's definitely not the case that either the EU is primarily to ensure 'free speech'.

Austria high court ruling for a form of censorship:

"that Facebook remove a post insulting a former Green Party leader, keep equivalent posts off its site, and do so on a global scale." [1]

And at then at the EU level: "Facebook Risks EU Court Order to Censor Hateful Posts Globally" [2]

This is the general theme of EU judicial and legislative activity.

I don't see anything really that much in the other direction.

[1] https://slate.com/technology/2020/11/austria-facebook-eva-gl...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-02/facebook-...

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#75

Post by baxtr »

Ok, I will probably get downvoted for this. But I will still speak my mind: I am an EU citizen and I don’t think that’s the right approach because it’s distracting from what really happened: We missed the big Internet bus because we were so much focused on keeping things the way they were. Now we try to regulate us out. It makes me unbelievably sad.

And it continues. The car was invented here but it takes an Australian visionary to push our car companies into the future. I am sure we will want to regulate Tesla soon too.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#76

Post by an_opabinia »

avianlyric wrote: post #38
ksec wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Another interesting tidbit is the answer to the common trope that 'private platform can act as they wish since they are private' : Now the EU is saying the same thing to Apple. It is their market, and they dictate the rules. Which is perhaps a taste of Apple's own medicine? I wonder what those people who keep saying it is Apple's platform they can do what ever they want had to say? I sometimes wonder had Apple not b…

> I sometimes wonder had Apple not been such an arse with its App Store and monopolistic rules. Would these regulations ever come up. Nah these regulations were always coming. Everyone always likes to pick on Apple and the App Store, but quite frankly in the EU (where iPhones market share is only 24% compared to 49% in the US) Apple is small fries compared to companies like Facebook which basically owns 100% of socia…

"Small fries" and 24%...

Anyway you're right but it's like, how would any of this concretely improve competition? In my experience, the problem is that giant companies steal your stuff, whether it's your code or your users, and that even when you want to enforce something like that, they can afford better lawyers than you.

Like nobody here is working on social networks, cellphones or web browsers. I bet you interact with IP law almost every single day though, and a lot of truly disruptive things have termination conditions like, "And then a giant company sues you for IP violations and you go bankrupt, even if you're in the right."

Maybe this benefits giant European tech companies, but it certainly doesn't benefit competition.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#77

Post by ericra »

This is interesting timing given the FTC announcement for data collection from social media companies in the US yesterday.

I wonder if there is any connection here like some government cooperation happening behind the scenes. The two events have differences and apply to a slightly different set of companies, but they are both in the spirit of trying to control or better understand how big tech companies are operating (and especially, using customer data).

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#78

Post by cgriswald »

avianlyric wrote: post #28
core-questions wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they don't have a responsibility to protect free speech because they are a private entity It continually amazes me when I see people who are ostensibly on the left trotting out this chestnut like as though it's even remotely a valid argument for the curtailment of one of the most important rights over the past few centuries. It's like as though they're in complete denial about the idea that this kind of speech cont…

Strange argument your making there. One of the interesting side effects of free speech rights is also the prevention of forced speech. After all how can you have free speech if someone else can force to express views you don’t hold? Why should my right to free speech trump your right to not be forced to speak? Equally what right to I have to force any corporation to publish and distribute speech they don’t agree with…

A fairer comparison is Facebook as a community bulletin board in a public space but that is privately owned.

What the conclusions should be and whether technical, philosophical, or practical matters should take precedence, I’m not entirely sure.

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