It’s rainy and it is a Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act frenzy.
We are very close to seeing something materialise that almost never
happens: the legislator sticking to its timeline. We will try to take
aboard the policy whirl.
Anna & Dimi
This and previous reports on Meta-Wiki:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
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Digital Services Act (DSA)
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Committee Opinions: As you might be aware, there are seven committees
producing opinions for the DMA, which is a lot.[01] This mass activity does
not always always help the parliament being taken seriously, but here we go.
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The Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) opinion [02] asks for a positive legal
protection of anonymous and pseudonymous users, makes sure notices aren’t
automatically considered actual knowledge of something illegal (important
to Wikimedia) and proposes phasing out behavioural personalised targeting
for advertising. The latter shall be impossible for political campaigns and
permissible for commercial advertising only after a conscious opt-in by
users (no “dark patterns”).
---
The Industry, Trade and Research Committee (ITRE) opinion also goes after
limiting behavioural advertising in its final compromise amendments and
also makes sure that notices aren’t automatically considered to be pointing
to illegal content (which we asked for). [03] It furthermore wants to
broaden the definition of Very Large Online Platforms (currently starting
at above 45 million users in the EU) to also include platforms that play a
“role in facilitating public debate, economic transactions and the
dissemination of information, opinions and ideas and in influencing how
recipients obtain and communicate information online.” VLOPs will be
designated by the commission and will have to comply with stricter
transparency and reporting requirements.
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The Culture and Education Committee (CULT) opinion was passed on Monday.
[04] It is a tale of more liability for online services and more rights for
rights holders to demand content being taken and staying down.
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The Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) opinion is to be voted in the coming
days and in an odd situation. While the final compromise shared by
rapporteur Geoffrey Didier (EPP FR) [05] do pick up our “notices aren’t
always about illegal content” argument and offers some minor improvements
as to how terms of services are to be enforced, it also seems to bring on
mandatory upload and stay-down filters and mandatory removal of harmful but
legal content. It seems like the EPP rapporteur is at odds with other
centrist groups in the committee and the results of the vote are uncertain.
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The lead committee, Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO),
discussed the act, the many opinions and thousands of tabled amendments on
Monday. [06] This will be the decisive place the parliament position gets
hammered out. While the rapporteur Ms. Schaldmeose’s (S&D DK) priority is
marketplaces and physical goods, her colleagues are focusing on the same
thorny issues as in other committees: Are notices always about illegal
content? How to define VLOPs? Should behavioural advertising be limited? We
expect MEPs to negotiate these questions in the coming two weeks and then
try to find a voting majority on or after 8 November.
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Council: The cacophony in the European Parliament is so loud, that not even
the usually well informed and staffed Permanent Representations of large
countries manage to follow all discussions. The Council compromises so far
have been going alright, with the Member States already acknowledging that
notices service providers get aren’t always about illegal content and that
the providers need to have the opportunity to assess and decide. [07]
On the other hand, quite a few Member States seem to support the idea that
there should be fixed deadlines for deciding on whether to remove content,
24h and 48h, at least for VLOPs. This is an initiative by Germany and
France and part of its future discussion depends on the new German
government coalition.
Another dividing line in the Council is whether the country of origin of
the service will have authority to enforce the DSA or whether to give this
authority also to targeted countries’ authorities. The latter is demanded
by France, the former defended by Ireland, Sweden and the Czech republic.
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Digital Markets Act
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Just before the summer recess MEPs at the IMCO Committee had submitted
close to 1 200 amendments to the DMA that they looked into during a
committee meeting on September 28. The amendments - or AMs, as we call them
for shorts - go all over the place, ones suggesting expansion and others
shrinking of the scope, quantitative thresholds and possibilities to wiggle
out of the gatekeeper category and resulting obligations. Watch our blog
for a comprehensive analysis coming out soon.
For now we can tell you that Rapporteur Andreas Schwab (EPP, DE) is
sticking to his guns[08] in the latest draft compromise: according to him
the scope should be limited to the most popular services of the biggest
platforms and there is no need for interoperability that users can
meaningfully act on. Schade, Herr Schwab.
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E-Privacy
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In September we took a targetter interest in ePrivacy (that we otherwise
follow through the work of European Digital Rights where we are a member).
The proposal for ePrivacy regulation is ambiguous whether nonprofits will
be able to contact members of our community / individual donors regarding
supporting our organisation after we already did it. The draft makes it
possible for a company to contact customers that already bought services or
products from that company, to advertise similar offers without a new
consent ensuring that they can opt out. [09]
Nonprofits do not seem to be explicitly included in that possibility and we
want to make MEPs and member states aware that a clarification is needed.
The time is right as the trilogues continue, so get in touch with us if you
would like to join in the effort.
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Austrian and Bulgarian Copyright Reform Consultation
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The Austrian and Bulgarian governments finally proposed their copyright
reform packages and are asking for public feedback. The former until 13
October [10], the latter until 15 October. [11] The good news is that they
both come with a public domain safeguard and decent user rights protections
out of the box. If you speak the languages and are keen on contributing to
our consultations, get in touch!
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wikimedia.brussels
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In September we are looking into AI tools and Wikipedia in a new series of
posts:
-
Wikimedia Projects and AI Tools: vandalism detection
<https://wikimedia.brussels/wikimedia-projects-ai-tools-vandalism-detection/>
-
Wikimedia Projects and AI Tools: Designing a “Section Recommendation”
tool without reinforcing biases
<https://wikimedia.brussels/wikimedia-projects-ai-designing-a-section-recommendation-tool-without-reinforcing-biases/>
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END
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[01]
https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?refere…
[02]https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/LIBE-AD-692898_EN.pdf
[03]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z90JigF2IwwJQ4mmrJNO_sBRpeFv32_n/view?usp=…
[04]
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/239774/CULT%20Voting%20Session%2027%…
[05]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/155MUMt6_JyvbCKdUgln0ezrthOaZnsa4/view?usp=…
[
06]https://twitter.com/EP_SingleMarket/status/1442456997505343498
[07]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FkmKRTTXVbjd6wNxifnoqn8tbYt3C6Jx/view?usp=…
[08]
https://wikimedia.brussels/dma-imco-targets-gafam-and-forgets-interoperabil…
[
09]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPrivacy_Regulation
[10]
https://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XXVII/ME/ME_00143/index.shtml#tab-Uebe…
[11]https://www.strategy.bg/PublicConsultations/View.aspx?lang=bg-BG&Id=6348