EU Commissioner Thierry Breton Warns Social Media Companies to Turn Up the Dial on Censorship – Or Else

August 25th will mark exactly four months since the European Commission officially designated 17 “Very Large Online Platforms” and two “Very Large Online Search Engines”, and from that date forward, per the below timeline, the designated entities will have to be in compliance with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which is designed precisely to “regulate” online speech.

Breton made his remarks in conversation with the French public broadcaster France Info, noting that in the future the social media companies will have to be pro-active in deleting content or face sanction. “When there is hateful content,” he said, “content that calls, for example, for revolt, also that calls to kill – because we’ve seen that too, [from] individuals… they will have the obligation to delete it instantly. If they don’t do it, they will be immediately sanctioned.”

Breton did not give any specific examples of content calling for violence, much less murder.

Breton noted that he had recently been to California to run “stress tests” with the American social media companies to ensure their preparedness for the DSA deadline, and he noted that he will go to China next week to discuss the same matter with TikTok. Consider the irony of this: an EU official travelling to China to ensure that a Chinese company is prepared to comply with a European censorship law!

Breton also noted that during his visit to California, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that he was going to “hire one thousand people”.