On Tuesday this week, the European Commission announced its first list of designated Very Large Online Platforms – or VLOPs – that will be subject to “content moderation” requirements and obligations to combat “disinformation” under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). As VLOPs, the designated services will be required “to assess and mitigate their systemic risks and to provide robust content moderation tools”.
Or as a subheading in the Commission announcement pithily puts it: “More diligent content moderation, less disinformation.”
As discussed in my previous articles on the DSA here and here, the legislation creates enforcement mechanisms – most notably, the threat of massive fines – for ensuring that online platforms comply with commitments to remove or otherwise suppress ‘disinformation’ that they have undertaken in the EU’s hitherto ostensibly voluntary Code of Practice on Disinformation.
Unsurprisingly, the list of designated VLOPs includes a variety of services offered by all the most high-profile signatories of the Code: Twitter, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and TikTok.
But, far more surprisingly, it also includes several platforms that are not signatories of the Code and to which the Commission appears now to be extending the Code and DSA requirements unilaterally. The latter include Amazon, Apple (in the form of the App Store) and even Wikipedia.
The Commission has even designated the favourite messaging service of every filter-crazy preteen, Snapchat! Curiously, however, WhatsApp is not named.
Since many of the newly designated platforms are not publishing platforms per se, it is unclear how exactly the ”content moderation’ requirements will apply to them.
What will ‘content moderation’ mean for Amazon, for example? That user reviews containing alleged ‘disinformation’ will have to be removed? Or will books or magazines that the European Commission deems to be vessels or purveyors of ‘disinformation’ have to be purged from the catalogue?
The inclusion of the Apple App Store is perhaps even more ominous. Will its subjection to the Code and DSA requirements provide an indirect route for the EU to demand the removal of apps of non-designated platforms that the Commission deems channels of disinformation? Telegram, for example?
And what about Wikipedia? The DSA invests the European Commission with the power to impose fines of up to 6% of global turnover on VLOPs. But Wikipedia is a non-profit that is funded by donations. It does not sell anything, so it does not have any turnover. But presumably the Commission plans to treat its fundraising income as such.
Furthermore, Wikipedia is not a publishing platform, but a user-edited collaborative encyclopedia. If it is to be subject to the EU’s ‘content moderation’ requirements, what can this possibly mean other than that Wikipedia will have to remove user edits that the European Commission deems to be ‘mis-‘ or ‘disinformation’? The European Commission will thus become the very arbiter of encyclopedic knowledge and truth.
The European Commission’s list of designated entities, comprising 17 Very Large Online Platforms as well as two Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs), is reproduced below.
Very Large Online Platforms:
- Alibaba AliExpress
- Amazon Store
- Apple AppStore
- Booking.com
- Google Play
- Google Maps
- Google Shopping
- Snapchat
- TikTok
- Wikipedia
- YouTube
- Zalando
Very Large Online Search Engines:
- Bing
- Google Search
Robert Kogon is a pen name for a widely-published financial journalist, translator and researcher working in Europe. Subscribe to his Substack and follow him on Twitter. This article was first published by the Brownstone Institute.
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Given that the Establishment’s imported people are supposedly our moral, emotional, spiritual and intellectual superiors, it’s very odd indeed that the Establishment want to hide this aspect of the enrichment the imports are bringing. [Cough. Cough]
Blimey, I actually see a child being helped from this Border Force boat in the photo. I thought they were as rare as hen’s teeth, but they do exist. I hope they didn’t just come over from France in a dinghy though.
But anyway, the asylum hotel saga continues;
”Migrants could be housed in hotels for up to three more years because of the asylum backlog, it has emerged.
Since Labour’s general election win, home secretary Yvette Cooper is said to have realised that clearing the backlog of asylum seekers will take longer than she had hoped.
It could now take as long as three years to deliver on her promise to “end asylum hotels” made during the campaign, with Whitehall sources saying the picture is “much worse than we thought”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/yvette-cooper-asylum-backlog-small-boats-b2621764.html
“I actually see a child being helped from this Border Force boat in the photo.”
Probably a child slave. The number is of the scale. See the newly released film “City of Dreams”
They bring children along only to threaten to drop them over the side if they think they will be taken back to France.
Ah, the promises of Pixie Balls Cooper….a bit like the Syrian refugees she never took into her home.
Indeed – skills in carving with big knives and acid-flinging are a real boost culturally and to our economy.
Yes we’ve known the government and their lapdog MSM outlets are keeping these important details from us since forever. It happens all the time. When crimes are reported it’s very rare to have details, such as nationality or migration status disclosed. Just yesterday afternoon there was another chemical attack in Notting Hill on a 14 year old girl, who now has ”life-changing injuries”, also a 16 year old boy, both hospitalized. A staff member of the school was less severely injured. No details of the attacker shared anywhere, and there must have been many eyewitnesses to this horrendous incident. The attacker is still on the loose, so that doesn’t exactly help the public keep a look out so that the perpetrator can be arrested, does it? Of course, the fact they’ve released no details of a physical description makes one immediately suspicious. Don’t they want them caught?
Excellent co-authored essay here, looking at the state of the UK economy but with an overview of the rest of Europe;
”One massive problem in the UK —which I’ve been talking about in recent months— is that while we know in broad terms that mass immigration is now making us poorer we also do not have the very granular data on things like welfare claims, taxation, and criminality by nationality and immigration status that are available in other countries and would allow us to paint an even more detailed picture of what’s going on.
Why? Because the state and civil servants very clearly want to keep this data hidden from you, the taxpayer, or they are so incompetent they are not collecting it in the first place. You’re being forced, in other words, to pay for the costs of this political project while the state simultaneously refuses to show you data on the impact immigration is having on your economy, welfare state, NHS, prison sentence, and more, and then being called a racist or misinformed lemming if you ask questions. It’s unbelievable.
But other countries HAVE been collecting and crunching this data and they find a very consistent and alarming story. In recent years, research in Denmark, Sweden, Germany and other countries that we’ll come to has converged on the same point: mass immigration, though especially low-wage, low-skill, and non-European migration from the Middle East and Northern Africa —precisely the kind that’s now flooding into Europe and the UK—is a net fiscal cost to economies in Europe. It’s hollowing them out from the inside and eroding their welfare states.
A couple of weeks ago, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) released a new report on the country’s fiscal risks, concluding that the country’s finances are on an unsustainable path. Over the next half-century, because of the UK’s ageing society and climate risks, public spending is forecast to rise from 45% to over 60% of GDP, with debt as a percentage of GDP soaring to an eye-watering 274% in the coming decades. In short, we’re heading for disaster unless something changes.
But what was also interesting about this report is that, unlike what usually happens, it did not point to mass immigration as the answer to these problems. Why? Because even the technocrats at the OBR have finally realised that the current model of mass immigration that we are pursuing in the UK is weakening, not strengthening, the economy. In short, the very kind of immigration that our hapless political elites on both the Left and the Right have been encouraging since Brexit—low skill, low wage, non-selective immigration from outside Europe— is the most economically damaging.”
https://www.mattgoodwin.org/p/the-economic-case-for-mass-immigration
Further to the acid attack. How do they plan on catching the psycho if no description of him/her has been released? I think this bit is telling. Speculation is only natural if no details are forthcoming, but we wouldn’t want to trigger the ‘far right’ and have them kick off again now, would we?
“No arrests have been made and police are investigating,” the Met Police said in a statement.
“While police lead the investigation into this incident I would urge everyone to avoid speculation as this will not be helpful and may compromise the investigation.”
https://news.sky.com/story/suspected-acid-attack-at-west-london-school-leaves-girl-14-among-three-injured-13225700
“this will not be helpful”
This is an interesting phrase. Not helpful … Not helpful to whom? The British public? Or the criminals? Or our mad Establishment?
Yes, quite. Few more details emerging here. To be honest, I’m not going to read too much into the colour of the attacker’s skin, given the demographics of London he could be as native as anyone else. I had the impression that acid attacks are most often personal but it reads like this was more of a random attack, but why somebody would do this to anyone let alone kids is beyond me.
”The Met said that the suspect has been described as a tall, slim, black male, who was wearing dark clothing and either a mask or balaclava to obscure his face. The suspect is said to have used an e-scooter to flee from the scene.
Lead investigator Detective Chief Inspector Dean Purvis said: “Officers were on routine patrol when they were flagged down to this terrible incident.
“From our enquiries so far we believe the two young victims were on Alfred Road when they were approached by a lone suspect who threw a substance at them before fleeing down Harrow Road.”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/10/01/london-acid-attack-leaves-14-year-old-girl-with-potentially-life-changing-injuries-police-search-for-black-male-suspect/
Is he claiming that full data was published up to the General Election. If so I believe he is mistaken. That was not the only fault of the Tories. Their Home Office also refused to publish data on re-offending by early release violent criminals – how many women and boys were raped and how many wives and partners were battered and how many murders were committed by early released violent men.
Suddenly! Suddenly – immigration and all its nastiness has come to the attention of the ‘Conservative’ Party nitwits squabbling over who will be head boy/girl to preside over the ashes of the Party.
The man formerly responsible for this disaster has fallen off his ass and onto his ass on his road to Damascus.
St Robert now has the faith. As our American cousins say: he’s arrived a day late and a dollar short.
He pointed out that in Denmark, data show that nationals from countries such as Kuwait, Tunisia and Somalia are significantly more likely to commit crimes compared to Danish citizens.
This should have been “he conclusively demonstrated that he has no friggin’ clue what he’s talking about”. The data published by Denmark shows that the percentage of criminals among immigrants from certain countries is higher or lower than the percentage of criminals among immigrants from certain other countries. It doesn’t show that individuals belonging to any of these groups are more or less likely to commit crimes in future than individuals belonging to some other group.
This means pretty much the only use for it is for demagogues like Jendrick to stir up animosities towards people of certain countries of origin regardless of their actual, individual behaviour. It’s certainly important to tackle the problem of foreign criminals but simply declaring all foreigners criminals is not a sensible way do to so. At least not if phrases like “rule of law” are supposed to mean anything.
Are you suggesting such statistics have no use at all? Obviously all are individuals but the knowledge that certain groups are more or less likely to be involved in certain activities is surely useful? Perhaps less so where illegal immigrants have destroyed their documents.
Probability is a mathematical concept and it means the likeliness that a random selection experiment has a certain outcome, eg, the obious, simple example that the probability of getting a three when rolling a dice is ⅙. Practically, this means when conducting a large number of identical random selection events, ie, rolling a dice numerous times, the relative frequency of each possible outcome will approach the probability.
The percentage of criminals among past immigrants from country X is also a relative frequency but it’s not a probability because there’s no random selection involved here. It means nothing for individual members of this group who are (somewhat simplified) either criminals or not and it means nothing for future immigrants from the same country.
Such a statistic is indeed useless except as weak measure of the quality of a certain existing environment. Eg, when the percentage of criminals among past immigrants from country X exceeds the percentage of criminals among the native population, than, quality of society as a whole has been degraded by this batch of immigration events. Something like this can be used as counterargument against “immigration is always beneficial” but that’s about it.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Jenrick stated that under the current “lax immigration controls”, the U.K. is “importing serious and violent crime”.
We are also importing serious economic liability. A recent OBR report, completely ignored by the broadcast media, asserts that at most 5% of immigrants who have recently come here will be net economic contributors to Britain over their lifetimes. The vast majority are unskilled and will, on average, take out £0.5 million more in benefits by the time they are 80 than they will contribute in taxes.
This should be the greatest scandal of the day. The OBR, which is hardly a radical body, and even softened the figures by excluding dependents, has blown to blazes the argument for mass immigration – that it funds better public services.
I notice Jenrick is not mentioning this. Maybe he’s not as bold and mould-breaking as he would like us to think.
I would suggest that a credible candidate should offer transparency across all departments and all subjects, particularly on energy and climate, Covid related issues, especially figures related to vaccine injured and deaths – like every death reported with vaccine status (for example).
As an added bonus also introduce accountability, truth, honesty and integrity – across the entire public sector, from the highest to the lowest. Also, demand the same in the Media.
Maybe then, a Conservative party leader could again be considered credible.