The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, issued a warning to Big Tech players like Google and Microsoft, saying they need to adhere to European Union (EU) mandates, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday (Jan. 26).
The EU wants the tech industry to abide by rules to moderate online content and constrain the market power of Big Tech players.
Macron told Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai on a call that unfair practices will be seen as an attack on European democracy, Bloomberg said.
France has been pivotal in helping the EU shape its message to prevent the spread of disinformation online, including hate speech, and to limit Big Tech firms. The European Commission (EC) in December introduced the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
“We need to contain this immense power of the big digital companies,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a virtual address at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday, per Bloomberg.
“We want the platforms to be transparent about how their algorithms work because we cannot accept that decisions that have a far-reaching impact on our democracy are taken by computer programs alone,” von der Leyen said.
The EU is mulling fines in an effort to encourage Big Tech firms like Facebook and Amazon to do a better job of policing online ads and content.
To meet the demands of the proposed Digital Services Act regulations, large platforms, many of them U.S.-based, would have to hire or appoint at least one compliance officer, if not more.
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