"The Digital Services Act before this Parliament has the potential to become a global gold standard," Haugen said.
POINTS
1. Haugen said the Digital Services Act has the potential to be a global standard
2. He said the DSA should be expanded to include online content
3. Facebook has rejected Haugen's allegations that it puts profit first rather than security
European draft legislation requiring technology companies to do more to address illegal online content could be the world's gold standard for secure online content if enforced, Facebook investigator Frances Haugen told EU lawmakers on Monday.
Haugen, a former Facebook employee who worked as a product manager for the company's lying team, has accused the social media giant of repeatedly putting profit first by suppressing hate speech and misinformation.
His testimony to a European Parliamentary committee comes after a standstill in London, Lisbon, and Berlin, and at a time when EU lawmakers were debating whether to ratify the Digital Services Act (DSA) proposed by EU anti-corruption official Margrethe Vestager.
"The Digital Services Act before this Parliament has the potential to become a global gold standard," Haugen said.
"It would be encouraging for other countries, including mine, to follow new laws that will protect our democracy but the law must be strong and resilient.
Haugen said the DSA should be expanded to include online content that violates the terms and conditions of the forum, and should force courts to take responsibility for risks beyond the distribution of illegal content such as election exploitation and indirect information about mental health damage.
Haugen said the content of the news should not be excluded from the law because disinformation campaigns could still play the system through digital platforms used by publishers.
In a blog post before the EU hearing, Facebook denied Haugen's allegations that it prioritized profits beyond consumer safety.
"Contrary to recent claims about our company, we have always had commercial motives to remove harmful content from our site," wrote Monika Bickert, vice president of content policy, on the blog.
He said Facebook would spend more than $ 5 billion (approximately Rs. 37,020 crore) this year on security and safety.
EU industry chief executive Thierry Breton, who met with Haugen earlier Monday, condemned the growing crackdown on technology companies over draft laws and urged lawmakers against the DSA scope to tighten their negotiations.
"Speed is everything. We need a DSA / DMA package adopted in the first half of 2022," he said after the meeting.
The DMA, or Digital Markets Act, is another EU strategic law that sets out the do's and don'ts of international technology companies.
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