Big Tech Regulation
Continued American questioning of European Big Tech laws
The US Congress Judiciary Committee sent a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in February arguing that Europe’s “censorship efforts” could harm Americans’ ability to speak freely online, reports Euractiv. The Chair of the Judiciary Committee, senator Jim Jordan, had in January sent a similar letter to the EU’s tech chief, Henna Virkkunen.
The letter to von der Leyen stated that the House expects to receive communications sent or received by EU Commission officials regarding content moderation on an ongoing basis in the coming weeks and months.
Jordan also sent subpoenas on 26 February to eight Big Tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, and X, seeking information about the companies’ communications with foreign countries of censorship. The letters to the companies said the committee is conducting oversight of how and to what extent “foreign laws, regulations and judicial orders compel, coerce, or influence companies to censor speech in the United States”.
They also stated that in recent years, foreign governments have taken “increasingly aggressive actions to suppress disfavored views on social media” and specifically mentioned the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which among other things aims to hinder the spread of disinformation and hate speech.
US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on the EU as retaliation for the union’s digital laws, in a memorandum on 21 February. After Trump’s announcement on 2 April of a 20% tariff on EU goods, French government spokesperson Sophie Primas singled out digital services as an example of what might be part of the EU’s tariff response, reports Euractiv. She specifically mentioned that would include digital services provided by the “GAFAM”, referring to Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft.
(MAGA on a writing spree to protect tech from ‘censorship’)
(France singles out digital services for EU’s tariff response)
X challenges court decision concerning German election data
Social media platform X challenged a German court decision that instructed the platform to share data with researchers. It was in mid-February that the Berlin Regional Court decided X must give access to their data on the German election that was to be held on 25 February.
This, after NGOs Democracy Reporting International (DRI) and Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte [Society for Civil Rights] sued X to provide them with access to the platform’s data in order to conduct research on the public discourse on X during the German election campaign.
X challenged the decision, and the court accepted the company’s complaint of a potential bias in the judge issuing the ruling. A hearing is now scheduled for 13 May for the court to decide if the initial court order will be upheld or not.
DRI states in an e-mail to European Media Policy that even if the court order is upheld, it will be too late for them to receive the data they requested, but it would still set an important precedent, meaning researchers in the future could turn to the courts to receive data access from social media platforms.
Social media’s role in German election
A study conducted by the corporate accountability group Ekō of the ads that Meta and X accepted ahead of the German elections showed that both companies categorically failed to take down hate-speech ads, reports Euractiv.
Ekō submitted ten ads that contained extremist hate speech, incitement to violence, and AI imagery, all of which should serve as grounds for blocking an ad under the Digital Services Act. Still, X approved all of the ads and Meta half of them.
Meanwhile a study on the impact of X on the German elections, by the Digital Forensic Research Lab, shows that the far-right AfD party outperform other German parties on X. But the analysis does not show that X posed a systemic risk to the German election in a manner that would require the European Commission to act under the Digital Services Act.
(Hate-speech failures by Meta and X undermine German election)
(The Musk Effect: Assessing X’s impact on Germany’s election discourse)
Big Tech behind most lobbying in Brussels
The largest companies and trade associations have substantially increased their budgets for EU lobbying in recent years. A new analysis from non-profit groups Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and Lobby Control shows the 162 corporations and trade associations declaring over 1 million euro of annual expenditure on EU lobbying, all together spent more than 340 million euro between February 2024 and February 2025.
That is 13 per cent more than the same period one year earlier, and an increase of one third since 2020. Considering the study only covers entities that have declared spending at least 1 million euro a year, the total of EU lobbying would be significantly higher.
The biggest spenders on lobbying in Brussels are Big Tech, spending 67 million euro in the analysed period of time. Biggest spenders amongst them are Meta (235 million euro), Microsoft (215 million euro), and Apple (112 million euro).
The analysis claims the lobbying has paid off, for example, given the European Commission’s current deregulation plans. The study has been based on information from CEO’s database – LobbyFacts.
(The EU’s Lobby League Table)
Commission releases new research tool for transparency database
The European Commission has released a new research application programming interface (API) to facilitate the search of data in the Digital Services Act (DSA) Transparency Database. It introduces programmatic search functionalities to the database, which tracks content-moderation decisions taken by online platforms. The tool is intended for academic and policy research.
(Commission releases Research API to facilitate the programmatic analysis of data in the Digital Services Act’s Transparency Database)
Commission increases support to fact-checkers
To strengthen the European fact-checking network, the European Commission on 1 April launched a call for proposals, worth 5 million euro. The actions to be implemented through the call include the implementation of a protection scheme against harassment of fact-checkers, building a repository of fact-checks, and creating a fact-checking response capacity, including for emergency situations.
The initiative aims to ensure the availability of fact-checking in all member states and official languages and is supposed to build on, complement, and expand the work of the European Digital Media Observatory and efforts such as the European Fact-Checking Standards Network.
The call is open from 15 April to 2 September and is intended for stakeholders from EU member states, as well as from candidate and accession countries and neighbouring countries associated with the Digital Europe Programme.
(Commission Launches €5 Million Call to Strengthen European Fact-Checking Network)
