Barcelona – Brendan Carr, the new president of the United States Communications Commission, was released by swinging the rules of moderation of the European Union content for his first major speech outside the United States
“There is a risk that the regulatory regime (EU) imposes excessive rules with regard to freedom of expression,” he said in the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday. “Censorship which is potentially by descending the pipe from the (Digital Services Act) is something that is incompatible with … our tradition of freedom of expression.”
Tensions between the EU and the United States have soared since the return of President Donald Trump’s power, his administration slamming EU technology laws as “extortion abroad”.
Washington is now threatening prices in response to European taxes and fines on American companies – just as the European Commission accelerates Big Tech polls on violations of antitrust rules and content moderation, including Facebook and Instagram from Meta and Elon Musk.
“If there is a desire in Europe to engage in protectionist regulations to provide disparate treatment to American technological companies, the Trump administration has been clearly that we are going to speak and defend the interests of American companies,” Carr on stage said at the telecommunications industry event.
“In many ways, freedom of expression has been retired,” said Carr, arguing that the Pandemic Covid-19 gave governments an excuse to tighten controls and rent Trump’s efforts to reverse the course.
The choice of Trump – which he called “warrior for freedom of expression” – to direct the American regulator in charge of telecommunications and the broadcasting previously promised to fight the “censorship cartel” of Big Tech.
He wrote to Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and its LinkedIn, Pinterest, Wikimedia, Snap and X unit last week by asking them for details on how they “reconcile the DSA with the tradition of American freedom of expression” and what role they see that “the officials of the EU government will play by encouraging you and on the request of information and censorship ”.
The spokesman of the European Commission, Thomas Regnier, said on Monday in a comment: “The DSA does not concern censorship and contains important protections against censorship. The allegations of censorship relating to the DSA are completely unfounded. »»
“The aim of our digital legislation, for example DSA, is the protection of fundamental rights. It requires platforms to assess and mitigate the risks to freedom of expression, “said Regnier, adding that” nothing in the DSA requires platforms to delete lawful content “.
This article has been updated to include a comment from the European Commission.
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