The EU is about to announce new rules for Big Tech

> they’ll have to tell us who’s paying for the ads that we see

Very good. Ads should always be declared.

> They’ll have to report on what they’ve done to take down illegal material

This isn't a fit for the internet as long as it isn't clear what constitutes legal/illegal content. The principle of overblocking has been explained numerous times.

As a European citizen I don't really want the EU to control content for that matter and I am not letting them decide what to watch. Those times are long over. It would only result in users looking elsewhere anyway.

"Illegal information" is something that rarely exists. Since large platforms decided otherwise in a lapse of judgement, regulation can have advantages and disadvantages. It might be needed to put big tech in its place, but should not concern any other platform.

Information about COVID is a negative example of information control, which is concerning. While there are large parts of the population distracted because they are able to make fun of weird conspiracies should not be an excuse to send the EU back to the last century. Government cannot determine what is information/disinformation, since the nature of politics would reduce truthful information to a subset that aligns with current policies. Nothing for the EU to do here.

Sounds overly critical, but until now Mrs. Vestager did a decent job.

Against "digital hate" write some journalists (writers) I read in conjunction with this act. Governments picking on people for internet comments are always laughable and weak. The press seems to be in its own bubble about financial incentives and certainly not aligned with the interest of common users.

The EU needs to advertise itself or its citizens will look elsewhere. Punishing people for comments isn't convincing, so better create some sensible policies, especially if you democratic legitimization is as weak as that of the EU.

“They’ll have to tell us how they decide what information and products to recommend to us, and which ones to hide, and give us the ability to influence those decisions, instead of simply having them made for us. And they’ll have to tell us who’s paying for the ads that we see, and why we’ve been targeted by a certain ad.”

I don't see how they will deal with such an amount of data.

Airbus for coders.