The European Union adopts a historic law against abuses of the Internet

What will change this agreement of the European Union to fight against the excesses of the Internet? “The objective is to put an end to the ‘jungle’ on the Internet: both on commercial sites and on social networks and this, throughout Europe.“, explains journalist François Beaudonnet, on the set of 19/20 Saturday April 23. “From now on, what is prohibited in real life, such as incitement to hatred, will also be prohibited on the web”, he continues. Sites like Facebook or Amazon will need to: “Inform the judicial authorities when they suspect a serious criminal offense and, above all, they will have to suspend, on their own initiative, users who upload illegal content”, he says. In other words, “websites become responsible for what they post”.

Will there be special obligations for giants like Facebook or Amazon? “For the very large online platforms, those with more than 45 million users in Europe, such as Facebook, Amazon or Twitter, they will be subject to more controls than the others and they will be obliged to let the European regulator access their data, which is not the case today”, specifies François Beaudonnet. Will there be penalties? “The fine may be up to 5% of the turnover of the platforms, it seems little but it is huge: it could reach tens of millions of euros, in other words that it should be very dissuasive”he concludes.