Hello!

Traditionally we don’t send out a monitoring report at the end of December. However, with the DSA, child protection, copyright and AI, plenty has piled up. So we decided to give you an update, in order to start 2025 with clear structure in our heads.

Dimi & Michele

=== DSA ===

Consultation: Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) are supposed to give researchers access to their data under Europe’s content moderation law (Digital Services Act, DSA). The European Commission will issue additional rules https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/13817-Delegated-Regulation-on-data-access-provided-for-in-the-Digital-Services-Act_en and is currently consulting on them. Naturally civil society and academics worry VLOPs will be too restrictive, while platforms worry about extra work and data protection. The Wikimedia Foundation’s reply is published https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/13817-Delegated-Regulation-on-data-access-provided-for-in-the-Digital-Services-Act/F3498877_en .

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Challenges: Six platforms are challenging the Commission’s decision designating them as “very large”: Pornhub, XNXX, Stripchat, XVideos and Zalando.

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Proceedings: As a regulator, the Commission has open proceedings against TikTok, X, AliExpress, Facebook, Instagram and Temu. The challenges are regarding advertising, dark patterns, illegal content and protection of minors. [Data compiled by Euractiv. https://www.euractiv.com/section/tech/news/dsa-audit-score-card-how-are-big-tech-platforms-complying-with-the-eus-landmark-legislation/ ]

=== Child Protection ===

CSAM in Council: The Hungarian Presidency forced governments in the Council to reveal their position on the proposed CSAM https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52022PC0209 regulation. The main argument is around a provision that mandates the scanning of all private chats for CSA materials. The results are that Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Czechia, Poland, Estonia, Finland and Belgium would be against, mainly citing that it would amount to surveillance.

=== Copyright ===

Opt-out exceptions: The Copyright Directive allows AI crawlers to tap into any publicly accessible content, as long as the rights holders have not opted out (through a technical mechanism that is currently being reviewed). However this doesn’t always seem to work smoothly. The French tech lobby now suggests https://www.francedigitale.org/en/posts/gen-ai-and-copyright dropping the opt-out mechanism in the text and data mining exception and moving to an extended licensing scheme.

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UK Consultation: The UK government has opened a consultation on copyright and artificial intelligence https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/copyright-and-artificial-intelligence. WMUK will participate.

==== AI Liability Directive ====

The AI Liability Directive https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/doing-business-eu/contract-rules/digital-contracts/liability-rules-artificial-intelligence_en was proposed back in 2022, but lawmakers decided to hold off on it while the AI Act was getting hammered out. It would aim to close some gaps not covered by other laws. Now the question is whether to proceed at all. The European Commission and parts of the EU Parliament, including Axel Voss (DE EPP) who claims he was less regulation for companies, want to proceed. Other parts of the European Parliament (including other German EPP members) and the Council are against. The first months of 2025 will be decisive to see if this gets off the ground.

==== From the Blog ====

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Deep Dive: The New von der Leyen Commission https://wikimedia.brussels/deep-dive-the-new-von-der-leyen-commission/ -

The worrisome phenomenon of SLAPPs in Europe: the new 2024 CASE Report https://wikimedia.brussels/the-worrisome-phenomenon-of-slapps-in-europe-the-new-2024-case-report/

===END===