A group of 113 experts on freedom of expression sent this Thursday (9) to the European Commission a letter in which they argued that the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) creates risks for freedom of expression on the internet globally.
The DSA will be reviewed by the European Commission until November 17, in order to assess the application and scope of the standard’s rules for large platforms and online search tools.
The letter, released and signed by the Alliance for Freedom (ADF), a conservative Christian legal and activist organization based in the United States, former Yahoo Europe Vice President Jean-Marc Potdevin, former US Senator and former US Ambassador for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, and American journalist Michael Shellenberger, creator of the Twitter Files series, accuses the DSA of building “a pan-European censorship infrastructure with vaguely defined limits and the potential to suppress legitimate democratic speech.”
“The broad definition of illegal content allows the most restrictive provisions on freedom of expression from a single EU country to be imposed as standard across the union and potentially the entire world, effectively importing the lowest common denominator of expression,” the letter argued.
“The broad definition of ‘illegal content’ in the DSA, combined with existing case law from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), opens the door to removals [de conteúdo] all over the world”, he warned.
The document calls on the European Commission to carry out “a comprehensive and inclusive consultation with independent experts on freedom of expression, constitutional law and digital rights, ahead of the November review, inviting the public to submit comments”.
It also requests that the EU executive body disclose the list of NGOs, civil society actors and partner entities involved in the review process, including the criteria and methodology used for their selection, and ensure that the review “includes a rigorous legal analysis of the compatibility of the DSA with fundamental rights protections”.
“The US Ambassador to the EU and Google have recently expressed concerns that the DSA could threaten American freedom of expression online. This letter from experts reinforces these concerns and warns that the legislation threatens to impose a regime of online censorship not just in the EU, but around the world,” said Adina Portaru, ADF International’s senior advisor for Europe, in a statement published on the organization’s website.
The European Commission has not yet commented on the letter.
