In a video, EU lead candidate of the right-wing populist party AfD, Maximilian Krah, criticized the EU digital laws that recently came into force. The Digital Service Act, for example, “is intended to prevent unorthodox and creative ideas from being shared on the internet”, said Krah. However, a look at the facts shows that this statement is mostly false.
In a TikTok video from 18 April 2024, Maximilian Krah, controversial lead candidate for the European elections of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, says that the European Union wants to prevent the sharing of “unorthodox and creative ideas on the internet with comprehensive legislation”. “They want to ban everything they don’t want,” Krah accuses the European Union (EU). The politician has repeatedly attracted attention for his extreme statements, which is why the AfD recently banned him from appearing. In the video from 18 April and in other videos, Krah implies that EU laws restrict freedom of expression. In particular, the politician mentions the Digital Service Act (DSA).
The Digital Services Act
Together with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the DSA forms a standardised and fundamental set of rules for digital services in the EU. The DMA relates exclusively to the digital market. The provisions of the Act are intended to control the power of large online platforms over the digital market in order to enable fair trade on this market. The provisions of the DSA also affect large online marketplaces, but are mainly aimed at platforms on which users can share content. For example, social networks and content sharing platforms. According to the EU Commission, the focus of the DSA regulations is on preventing illegal or harmful online activities and the spread of disinformation. This is also intended to promote user safety and safeguard fundamental rights online. The law came into force on 17 February 2024 and is now valid in all EU member states. Special provisions have already applied to particularly large online platforms and search engines since 25 August 2023.To check Krah’s statement, we take a look at the Regulation of the European Parliament and Council of 19 October 2022, in which the provisions of the DSA were laid down. This regulation will be used to check and assess various aspects of Maximilian Krah’s statement. As Krah refers to the sharing of content in the video in question, the provisions that apply to online platforms on which users can share content are mainly taken into account. The DMA plays no role here.
Provisions of the Digital Service Act
According to Krah, the DSA is intended to prevent “unorthodox and creative ideas from being shared on the internet”. However, Article 1, paragraph 1 of the regulation explicitly states that the aim of the regulation is to create a safe, predictable and trustworthy online environment in which innovation is encouraged.
At this point, the question arises as to what the DSA actually prescribes for online platforms with regard to user content. First and foremost, it is about improving mechanisms to remove illegal content on these platforms. Article 16 of the regulation, for example, obliges platform operators to set up easily accessible reporting procedures so that users can report content that they consider to be illegal. Such reports must then also be promptly reviewed by the operator and the reported content deleted if necessary. In accordance with Article 17 of the DSA, the user concerned must also be provided with a justification for such a deletion, against which they can also lodge an objection. The same applies if the user account is blocked or restricted.
Content should therefore only be deleted under the DSA if it is illegal. The sharing of “unorthodox and creative ideas”, as Krah says, is therefore only prevented if they violate existing laws. In a WDR article, digital expert Jörg Schieb also describes the content combated by the DSA not as unorthodox and creative, but as “hate and agitation”.
Krah also picks up on these words in his video. “Everything that exceeds the intellectual horizon of the Eurocrats in Brussels is hate and hate speech,” says the politician. He claims that the members of the EU institutions themselves would check which content is illegal and which must be deleted. However, as already mentioned, the judgement of content lies with the platform operators themselves. Only certain national authorities can issue an order to remove illegal content, but this must be documented by law (Article 9). It is also primarily the member states that monitor the platform providers in implementing the provisions and impose sanctions if necessary (Articles 49 & 52).
The provisions of the DSA itself do not introduce any new bans on specific content. According to Article 3 h) of the Regulation, illegal content is any information that violates EU law or the national law of a Member State. This applies regardless of the exact type of information or law in question. Furthermore, this applies not only to the sharing of content, but also to the sale of products or services. According to point 12 of the preamble, the point at which content is considered illegal also corresponds to the rules of the ‘offline environment’, i.e. existing laws. However, the EU organisations can jointly draft and adopt laws which then apply to all their member states, i.e. to the offline environment. This means that the EU can, to a certain extent, determine what is prohibited and what is not. In addition, the EU has set up the European Commission for Digital Services to enforce the DSA, which monitors the operators of online platforms in implementing the provisions and can take action in the event of complaints. Krah’s statement in the video: ‘Anything they don’t want, they want to ban’, is therefore correct in that the EU organisations have the option of banning ‘what they don’t want’. The newly established Digital Services Commission could also be seen as an instrument for implementing bans.
When asked, however, WDR digital expert Jörg Schieb emphasised once again that the regulations are not about unorthodox opinions that are to be combated, but about ‘criminally relevant statements’ such as hate and agitation. Schieb describes the accusation made by Krah in his video as ‘not really to be taken seriously’.
Conclusion
In addition to the member states, the European Commission for Digital Services indeed also monitors the operators of online platforms and can also sanction them if necessary. The EU can also pass laws through its bodies that apply to member states and platform operators. This means that the EU can theoretically issue new bans, which Krah criticises. However, the DSA we are talking about does not prohibit the sharing of unorthodox and creative ideas. The regulation governs how online platforms in the EU should deal with illegal content. The EU also does not prescribe the deletion or prohibition of specific content, but is intended to regulate the handling of dangerous or harmful content more clearly. When assessing this content, it is not a criterion whether it is ‘unorthodox and creative’. What is relevant is whether the content violates existing laws. Furthermore, contrary to what Krah claims, the EU does not check online content for illegal content itself, but places the responsibility for this in the hands of the platform operators. Maximilian Krah’s statements from the TikTok video from 18 April 2024 are therefore mostly false.
RESEARCH | ARTICLE | Tom Geyer (Hochschule der Medien, Stuttgart, Germany)
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