EU BYTES EU Bytes
Former Executive Director of the European Casino Association and current Managing Director of Time & Place Consulting, Glenn Cezanne provides the latest info on what’s trending and what’s coming down the pipeline in Brussels and around the EU.
T Glenn Cezanne
he World Cup is on and Germany is out. So, considering I live in Belgium and the colours of the flags are pretty much just a re-arrangement, the choice seems quite obvious.
This time I am not writing from Brussels, but from the car between Katowice Airport and Gliwice in Southern Poland where I am on my way to speak at a conference organised by the Silesian University of Technology on EU funding and project management. It is hard to focus though because of the very green countryside. A breath of fresh air from the congested roads of the Brussels/EU area. So, what’s in this month’s article? Tackling illegal
content online, a little about the last hearings on Facebook and Cambridge Analytica in the European Parliament, and the latest EU Summit, the dynamics of which I cannot deny you.
Tackling illegal content online The European Commission launched a public consultation at the end of April with a view of asking stakeholders on measures to further improve the effectiveness to fight illegal content online, the deadline which just passed – i.e. 25th June. The consultation will add to the basis for understanding whether there will be a binding legal instrument to cover illegal content, or not do anything beyond the Recommendation which the European Commission published earlier this year. Maybe, with some additional soft measures. The measures are seen to primarily target the
ability of the current infrastructure in place, which includes national authorities, hosting service providers and law enforcement agencies, to successfully address the issue of illegal content. What is illegal content? The Commission defines it as: “any information which is not in compliance with Union law or the law of a Member State concerned.” Unlicensed gambling advertisement comes to mind. Even though, most probably not a top priority when it comes to illegal content compared to material related to child
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abuse, if there is any form of initiative to come out of the Commission, I am pretty sure there will be some forces at work to create a mechanism facilitating taking down content related to gambling.
Facebook and Cambridge Analytica I don’t know if you have been following the whole “scandal” which seems to be moulding more and more into Facebook bearing the brunt for all data collecting platforms, but it is exciting. Not least, because Facebook seems to be looking at creating the notion that, as they are constantly diving into an innovative world where everything is new, so the challenges must be too. At least this is the impression I got from the FB experts who spoke at the two public hearings held in the European Parliament following a hearing held with Mark Zuckerberg in early June. Most of the Members of the European Parliament grilling the FB experts did not seem to think this is a valid point. Certainly not when listening to the Members who adamantly thought there were infringements of data protection and in the responsibility to protect the user. The new Data Protection Regulation which came into force at the end of May seemed to give additional wind into Parliament sails, even though it didn’t apply at the time when the Cambridge Analytica story unfolded. There was another Data Protection Regulation though, which also contained strong obligations for organisations to handle data. I don’t want to go into the discussions of whether
there was a scandal or not, whether there had been infringements, and to what degree FB should be punished. Instead it is worthwhile to see how the discourse in the Parliament evolved towards the responsibility of platform holders. Fake news, illegal content (déjà vu?), targeted advertisement, etc. So, are social platforms, the new sugar drinks or
the new tobacco? To a certain degree, yes. I think there already is a strong drive to regulate more closely and tightly. But, for many that are worried
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