EU’s Big Tech Disinformation Law Comes Into Force

The European Union’s code of practice on disinformation, which was integrated into the Digital Services Act (DSA) earlier this year, became enforceable under EU law on July 1. The DSA is the bloc’s sweeping law on digital services.

In February, the EU formally endorsed the integration of the voluntary 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation into the DSA, upgrading it from a voluntary guideline to a mandatory code of conduct.

The code is now enforceable for companies that the EU has designated as “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPs) and “Very Large Online Search Engines” (VLOSEs), including Google, Meta, TikTok, and Microsoft.

As of July 1, these platforms must demonstrate compliance with their obligations under the law to prevent disinformation and must make their efforts auditable, with the first transparency reports due in early 2026.

The measures include cutting financial incentives for purveyors of disinformation—ensuring, for example, that they do not benefit from advertising revenue—and extending “fact-checking coverage across all EU Member States and languages,” as well as ensuring that platforms “make a more consistent use of fact-checking on their services,” according to the European Commission.

U.S. faith-based legal advocacy organization ADF International wrote in a July 1 post on social media platform X that the EU has taken “a significant step toward strengthening online censorship, transforming the ‘Code of Conduct on Disinformation’ into a mandatory part of the Digital Services Act.”

ADF stated that the Digital Services Act “threatens free speech across the world and must be repealed.”

Violations of the legislation can lead to hefty fines, up to 10 percent of a company’s annual global revenue for a first offense. For repeated violations, the fine can rise to 20 percent.

Larger platforms face stricter rules and obligations than smaller services under the DSA.

The United States is set to impose a 50 percent tariff on goods imported from the European Union, with the tariff currently scheduled to take effect on July 9.

The Trump administration has hinted at a showdown with Europe over big tech regulation. Administration officials have claimed that the EU’s laws and regulations restrict free speech.

“There is some concern that I have with respect to the approach that Europe is taking with the DSA (EU Digital Services Act) in particular,” U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr said in March at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

In February, U.S. Vice President JD Vance denounced content moderation at an artificial intelligence (AI) summit in Paris, calling it “authoritarian censorship.”

Trump said Washington had terminated talks with its northern neighbor, with one of the reasons being that Ottawa “had announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country.”

“They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also,” he said.

However, the EU stated that the laws are not open for negotiation.

“Our legislation is not on the table. It is not open for negotiations, and this also includes, of course, our digital legislation,” European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told a daily press conference in Brussels on June 30.

In response to a follow-up question, Regnier said: “Our legislation will not be changed. The [Digital Markets Act] and the DSA are not on the table in the trade negotiations with the United States.”

He said the commission, which acts as the 27-nation bloc’s executive branch, wanted a trade deal and remained optimistic about reaching an accord with Washington by the July 9 deadline.

Supporters of the DSA package say Trump’s tariffs should not dissuade the EU from cracking down on technology companies.

In a jointly authored article, tech experts Jakob Ohme, LK Seiling, and Claes H. de Vreese wrote that European leaders must protect the DSA.

Published in TechPolicy.Press in March, the article states that the European Commission needs to “continue to enforce the Digital Services Act and re-up its game by getting faster and more fierce.”

“From the perspective of civil society organizations, NGOs, scientists, and governments, who have worked long and hard to arrive at the DSA framework, using it as a global bargaining chip in geopolitical clashes is wrong,” the authors wrote.

In May, the European Commission referred the Czech Republic, Spain, Cyprus, Poland, and Portugal to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failing to implement the DSA effectively.

The law typically focuses on major platforms such as Google and Meta, but member states that fail to implement its provisions may also face legal action by the commission.

In a May 7 statement, the commission criticized those five nations for not designating or empowering a national digital services coordinator (DSC), agents who are responsible for supervising, enforcing, and monitoring the law.

“Poland failed to designate and empower the DSC to carry out its tasks under the DSA,” the commission stated. “Although Czechia, Cyprus, Spain and Portugal each designated a DSC, they have failed to entrust them with the necessary powers to carry out their tasks under the DSA. … As the Member States have not taken the necessary measures, the Commission has decided to refer the Member States to the Court of Justice of the European Union.”

Guy Birchall contributed to this report.