The European Commission will focus on combating phenomena such as disinformation and the spread of illegal content in the new European Center for the Transparency of Algorithms (ECAT), which will help Brussels supervise large digital platforms such as Facebook or Twitter.
Five months after the entry into force of the new Digital Services Law, which creates greater responsibilities for technology companies in the removal and mediation of illegal content (such as pedophilia, harassmenthate speech and that affect mental health), the community executive held an ECAT launch event this Tuesday in the Spanish city of Seville.
In her speech at the session, the Deputy Director of the Directorate General for Communication Networks, Content and Technologies of the European Commission, Renate Nikolay, stressed that “Europe has to lead the regulation of digital platforms and is empowered to do so”, specifically due to “difficulties in the digital space and phenomena such as disinformation” in the European Union.
“We have to show that we can not only create rules, but also change the digital space for greater access to data. [das plataformas] and bring more clarity to the impacts on the impacts”, highlighted the person in charge.
This is where the ECAT appears, inaugurated this Tuesday, which according to Renate Nikolay will help the European Commission to “strengthen the rules and investigate and collect evidence”, that is, in cases of infringements by the platforms.
“The Commission is taking its regulatory role very seriously” in the digital sphere, he added, recalling the heavy fines provided for infringing digital platforms, which can reach up to 6% of the annual turnover of these technological ‘giants’ .
Also present on the occasion, the director of the Joint Research Center of the European Commission in Seville, Mikel Landabaso, highlighted the need to “open the black box of algorithms that so much affect daily life”, to “create a control for the citizens”. and people-centered ethics.
According to the experts interviewed by Lusa, this new center integrated into the scope of the internal science and knowledge service of the European Commission, the Joint Research Centre, is a way for Brussels to “hope for the best by preparing for the worst”, that is to say , preventing infringements of the new community regulations, not only minor ones (such as failure to comply with deadlines or communications), but also inaction in relation to the new obligations.
It is expected that the ECAT, when called upon to intervene by the community executive, can help the institution in matters such as investigations and the collection of evidence on infringements of digital platforms.
The ECAT can also receive complaints from civil society or from so-called whistleblowers, which the center will forward to the Commission, the institution in charge of initiating investigations, conducting interrogations and, where appropriate, imposing large fines.
Last November, the new Digital Services Law, which includes the ECAT, came into force, created to protect the fundamental rights of users online and become unprecedented legislation for the digital space that holds platforms accountable for illegal and harmful content.
The new law applies to technological giants with 45 million or more users in the European Union, which represents close to 10% of the EU population, such as Facebook (from the Meta group) or Twitter, but also to new services such as ChatGPT, of artificial intelligence, given that despite not being considered a platform, it collaborates with them.
Source: TSF
