Brussels demands the removal of terrorist content

European Commission decides to abandon voluntary approach to removal of posts, clips. The Companies that consistently exceed this time limit would face a very high fine.

The initiative made less noise than the adoption on the same day of the draft copyright directive. Yet, it is also a stone launched by Europe in the garden of the giants of the Net.

The European Commission presented, Wednesday, September 12, a draft regulation requiring online content hosts to delete within an hour any terrorist content reported to them by a member state.

In the event of repeated non-compliance with this rule, violators face a huge fine of 4% of their worldwide annual turnover.

This sanction, which aims to dissuade, constitutes the last stage of a device developed by the Commission to further reduce the digital grip of terrorist propaganda.

First, the text creates a formal procedure for states to report to hosts the presence of terrorist content. Once this reasoned report has been made, the host will only have one hour to delete it.

Following this first report, he must prove within three months to the State at the origin of the procedure his goodwill to prevent the reappearance of the deleted content and to fight against similar messages.

At the end of this exchange, if the Member State is not convinced by the guarantees provided by the host, it may require it to implement certain technical measures, including automated filtering. Finally, if this process does not succeed, the Member State will be able to impose sanctions adapted to the size of the company.

More generally, the Commission's proposal confirms the duty of vigilance of the platforms with regard to the terrorist content. A concept already present in European law, but that Brussels wants more operational.

Its text is broad: all Internet services allowing the publication of text, sound or video are concerned. This spectrum therefore includes large social networks (where terrorist propaganda is declining), but especially sites for storing images or more confidential texts, a major objective for the Commission. And no matter if they do not have a seat in the European Union: it will be enough if the service is designed for the European users or used by a large number of them to fall into the purse of the device. Hosting companies located outside Europe will have to appoint a representative who can respond at any time to requests from States.

Critics are already firing. For the NGO defending digital freedoms La Quadrature du Net, the proposed regulation "trivializes police and private censorship and the circumvention of justice." EU Security Commissioner Julian King rejects this notion: "This is not censorship. It's not about making subjective decisions. We are not talking about a gray area. Terrorism content is illegal online, just as it is offline, and must be removed. "

The European Commission has been putting pressure on digital platforms for several months to eliminate terrorist content more quickly. Brussels had warned: for lack of results, it would have to go through the legislative box.

The Silicon Valley giants have long hoped to escape this chopper. To try to convince the European executive, they have multiplied in recent months the evidence of their efforts, trumpeting, for example, the progress of their artificial intelligence.

This was not enough: the Commission considers that it has sent a clear message, which has not been sufficiently heard.