Policy Observatory

The European Commission started two public consultations Thursday, as part of its Digital Single Market strategy. One is about the role of online platforms such as Google and Amazon, and asks whether they should be more transparent. The other asks citizens about their opinion and experience with geo-blocking.

The Commission wants to hear from citizens, manufacturers, retailers (especially SMEs), right holders, data and cloud service providers and users, as well as all those involved in the collaborative economy.

Please see the press release here.

This paper deals with article 13 of the Commission’s proposal which introduces a filtering obligation on online platforms that allow users to upload content. The proposal fails to establish clear rules for internet users that make it clear how they can share and remix content legally. Instead it introduces a filtering requirement for online platforms that can potentially serve as a censorship machine and will violate users’ fundamental rights and distort the existing legal framework. From COMMUNIA's perspective article 13 and the related recitals should be deleted from the proposal. You can download a pdf version of the position paper here.

On June 8, the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) Committee will decide its standpoint. The IMCO committee is jointly responsible for the Parliament position on one of the most controversial parts of the reform: the introduction of mandatory censorship filters on online services such as social media.

Today it was revealed that MEP Pascal Arimont from the European People’s Party (EPP) is trying to sabotage the Parliamentary process, going behind the negotiators of the political groups and pushing a text that would make the Commission’s original bad proposal look tame in comparison. If he succeeds again, the result would once more do the opposite of what the Committee is tasked to do: Protecting European consumers.