Very short note on the EU's DMA and DSA regulations
For those trying to keep up with various regulatory debates, it’s useful to remember that the EU’s DMA (Digital Markets Act) is not the same as the DSA (Digital Services Act) even though they were passed at the same time.
Both are extensions of pre-existing EU principles, for better or for worse
The DMA is, in my personal opinion, less problematic as it specifically applies to markets and big companies and, honestly, fuck big companies.
Americans also overestimate how emotionally invested Europeans are in their own big companies. You’re generally not going to get the same sort of emotional “how dare they touch my favourite company” when the EU acts against a big European website.
The DSA attempts to regulate “harmful content” on social media and that’s when things get quite a bit iffy as a politician’s idea of harmful isn’t the same as that of a child welfare organisation, researcher, or education expert.
Personal note: It’s always a bit weird when I feel the urge to explain EU stuff on social media. Iceland isn’t in the EU and the EEA doesn’t have to adopt all EU regulations. (Not a lawyer, but if I understand it correctly the European Economic Area agreement has some provisions that outline which EU regulations are mandatory and which aren’t.
Neither the DSA or the DMA are in effect here, for example, and even if they do get adopted, they might well take a different form.