The Web Summit is a huge annual event in which different leaders from political, digital, media and other societal industries come together and discuss the future of the tech industry as a whole, on a global level. This event usually takes place in Lisbon, however, this year, it is being held virtually from 2nd December to 4th December.
So far, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and nine vice-presidents and commissioners from the EC have highlighted some major European Union policies and shed some light on the future investments to build a better technological future in Europe.
Ursula von der Leyen told the summit that the European Commission is all about bringing some changes that will mark with stricter rules and policies for the tech companies that operate in the digital world. It will be sort of like rewriting a rulebook for a better and more controlled future in the digital realm. She further said that these rules will be applied to everything and anything, from the merchandising of unsafe products online to content moderation policies against the spread of hate speech, violence, and a lot more.
According to Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission is all set to put more pressure on the tech apps to take down any content that violates the new guidelines.
Coronavirus pandemic served as a catalyst for innovation as well as more uncontrolled behavior in the digital world.
Ursula told the summit that because of the coronavirus pandemic that ensued global lockdowns, people started using tech apps more than ever before. During 2020, European tech companies saw a major boom by around 50 percent too, and that was because people became more reliant on the internet and these tech companies and their apps to pass their time during the lockdown period. However, when there is increased demand, there has to be an increased supply too. When the users’ demand for more content and applications increased, the tech companies started operating more and during this process, certain rules were ignored, and the decorum of the digital world was disturbed.
Ursula, who claims herself to be a tech optimist said that although no one expects these digital forums to check all the content that they are hosting, still, that does not mean that these tech companies get a chance to operate outside a certain set of rules applied for offline content.
“All illegal content that is notified by competent national authorities must be taken down.”
Ursula also said that content moderation may come at the cost of threatening the freedom of speech and expression for many users, however, if there is some illegal content that functional and responsible national authorities point out, they must be taken down immediately by the tech apps.
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Tech apps like Google and Facebook are likely to contest these new and stricter rules in Europe and the US, but they already face a lot of criticism because of their relaxed content moderation policies.
I’m Ava Paul, an experienced news website author with a special focus on the entertainment section. Over the past five years, I have worked in various positions of media and communication at World Stock Market. My experience has given me extensive knowledge in writing, editing, researching and reporting on stories related to the entertainment industry.
