Digital Policy Lab: Policy Digest #15

Policy Digests offer an overview of recent digital policy developments in Digital Policy Lab (DPL) member countries, including regulatory and non-regulatory initiatives aiming to combat online harms such as disinformation, hate speech, extremist or terrorist content.

US President Joe Biden signed the 21st Century Peace Through Strength Act, including an Act that gives ByteDance 270 days to divest ownership of TikTok or cease its operations in the US. The European Commission increased enforcement efforts of the Digital Services Act (DSA) with the opening of formal infringement proceedings against several platforms, including Meta and TikTok, and sent letters of formal notice to multiple member states regarding their respective Digital Services Coordinators. Canada proposed the Online Harms Act (Bill C-63), mainly framed as an effort to introduce child protection and increase platform responsibility. The French National Assembly approved a wide-ranging new online safety bill, including stronger penalties for online hate and harassment and digital literacy initiatives. The United Kingdom’s Ofcom published best practice principles on media literacy by design and issued a call for evidence on the categorisation of services under the Online Safety Act. The UK government also announced an amendment of the Criminal Justice Bill to criminalise the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes. The Australian Federal Court granted an interim injunction that requires X to hide extreme violent content after Class 1 removal requests from eSafety. The transatlantic Trade and Technology Council held its sixth ministerial meeting.