Mozilla CEO urges European Commission to seize once-in-a-generation opportunity

From the letter: Any regulation needs to encourage comprehensive content responsibility, meaning companies are accountable for ensuring their practices and processes do not give undue amplification to harmful and illegal content.

Does the same viral amplification of normal content become "undue" when applied to "harmful" (I'm sure the definition won't be abused!) content? Meaning platforms will have to preemptively police and suppress such content, or be held liable?

I would have expected a company supposedly devoted to user freedom such as Mozilla to know better than to endorse censorship through vague messaging like this.

I don't think UvdL is the correct figure to spearhead such an approach. She might be popular outside of Germany because people cannot understand what she says and she isn't really know for digital competency.

> For too many individuals and groups, the internet today is not an empowering outlet for free expression

I disagree. On the contrary we see classical news outlets preferred in search results because of direct business relations with Google and the false info hysteria, that is stressed in this letter. This has infested search results that are only tangentially related to the news business. "Foster diverse and reliable media content" shall mean mainstream media sources.

Was Covid a disaster because of misinformation? I don't think so. People being knee-jerks about wearing masks has multiple causes.

Otherwise I agree for the issue of transparency when it comes to ads. It is a seriously toxic industry that needs strong legal borders for their operation.

The EU also wants to market health data of its citizens which can make you look envious at the UK, although I am sure their government is just as incapable on digital technologies.

However, digital policies should not be delegated to the EU, since it doesn't have the capacity and legitimization in my opinion. So I cannot really see the once-in-a-generation opportunity aside from maybe using the pandemic to implement unpopular decisions, which I hope Mozilla would define upfront.