09/27/2023 / By Ethan Huff
While the government and media kept everyone distracted by whatever, the European Union (EU) quietly passed a new law that has officially and forever changed the nature of the internet.
The highly invasive Digital Services Act (DSA) took effect just last month, allowing bureaucrats, many of them unelected, to police the internet and restrict what gets said and shared.
“We’re bringing our European values into the digital world,” proudly announced European Commission (EC) head Ursula von der Leyen, who recently blamed Russia for dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, towards the end of World War II – a simple fact check shows that the United States dropped the bomb, not Russia.
“With strict rules on transparency and accountability, our Digital Services Act aims to protect our children, societies, and democracies. As of today, very large online platforms must apply the new law,” von der Leyen added.
(Related: Check out our earlier coverage to learn more about what the DSA means for public internet access across Europe.)
In conjunction with the passage of the Digital Markets Act, the DSA, according to the EU Commission, will “aim to create a safer digital space where the fundamental rights of users are protected and to establish a level playing field for businesses” – “safer” for whom, we wonder?
While claiming to simply be trying to foster a better internet for everyone, the DSA actually takes direct aim at silencing certain voices while amplifying others – this is the opposite of a “level playing field,” by the way.
The DSA specifically targets “online marketplaces, social networks, content-sharing platforms, app stores, and online travel and accommodation platforms,” and “includes rules that govern gatekeeper online platforms.”
Why do things need to change in this arena? The EU claims that there are “problems” that have to be addressed, particularly as it pertains to “the trade and exchange of illegal goods, services, and content online.” In other words, “crime” is the scapegoat for scrapping freedom of speech and association on the internet.
“Online services are also being misused by manipulative algorithmic systems to amplify the spread of disinformation, and for other harmful purposes,” the EU claims. “These challenges and the way platforms address them have a significant impact on fundamental rights online.”
First passed in October 2022 and scheduled to take effect in November 2022, the DSA is an incremental bill in that the major “teeth” of it are only now taking effect nearly a year after its passage.
The DSA’s dedicated website stipulates that the following “17 Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and 2 Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs) that reach at least 45 million monthly active users” must be forced to legally comply with the legislation’s dictates. These entities include:
Alibaba AliExpress
Amazon Store
Apple App Store
Booking.com
Facebook
Google Play
Google Maps
Google Shopping
Instagram
LinkedIn
Pinterest
Snapchat
TikTok
Twitter
Wikipedia
YouTube
Zalando
And the two very large online search engines are:
Bing
Google Search
What all of these digital platforms will now have to do in accordance with the DSA is enforce and put on “offer” for their users the following things:
1) Clear information must be shown on the platforms recommending that users believe certain information, though users have the right to opt-out of this if they so choose.
2) Take measures to address “risks” linked to the dissemination of illegal content online.
3) Present clear terms and conditions and enforce them diligently and non-arbitrarily.
4) Create a mechanism for users to flag illegal content, then act immediately upon receiving notifications.
5) Analyze their respective platforms for specific risks while creating mitigation measures, i.e., create tools to stop the spread of “disinformation.”
Part of the globalists’ ultimate endgame is to silence the world through tech censorship. Learn more at Censorship.news.
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Tagged Under:
bias, big government, Big Tech, Censorship, Digital Services Act, DSA, EU, European Union, First Amendment, free speech, freedom, Glitch, internet, Liberty, Police, speech police, thought police, Tyranny, Ursula von der Leyen
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