European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has opened the Web Summit event by pledging to overhaul the way Brussels regulates the tech industry.
Speaking on the first day of the influential three-day conference, hosted in Lisbon, Portugal, Ms von der Leyen said the commission would “be rewriting the rulebook for our digital market,” on the day Brussels’ new Digital Services Act was initially scheduled to go live.
That rule, which replaces 2000’s e-Commerce Directive, will now go into effect next week. It aims to redress risks and rights issues modern digital users face, and bolster antitrust against the tech industry’s biggest players.
Ms von der Leyen stressed that the new law would not be a carbon copy of the US’ Section 230, which aims to make companies liable for all content posted to their platforms. “No-one expects all digital platforms to check all the user content that they host,” she said. “This would be a threat to everyone’s freedom to speak their mind.”
Rather, harmful content would more easily be removed from the Internet, said Ms von der Leyen.