Europe squares up to Big Tech, drawing Washington’s ire

European countries are stepping up pressure on social media companies, responding to public outcry over child safety fears, but have faced a backlash from the United States, home to the likes of Facebook and Elon Musk’s X.

Spain ordered prosecutors on Tuesday to investigate Facebook owner Meta, X and TikTok over allegations they spread AI-generated child sexual images, following a similar move in Britain.

Ireland has also launched an official probe into X’s AI chatbot Grok’s processing of personal data and production of harmful sexual images.

A growing list of European countries (France, Spain, Greece, Denmark, Slovenia and the Czech Republic) have in recent weeks moved to follow Australia in proposing social media bans among teenagers amid concerns about addiction, online abuse and declining school performance.

Germany and Britain are considering similar measures.

National measures reflect political imperative but also frustration with the European Union. Politicians, advisers and analysts say governments are acting alone because of doubts that Brussels will move quickly or forcefully – even though individual states face the same legal, diplomatic and enforcement hurdles as the EU.

Under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), which comes into effect in 2024, major platforms could face fines of up to 6% of global annual turnover if they fail to curb illegal or harmful content.

But enforcing fines is fraught with politics. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened EU countries with tariffs and sanctions if they impose new technology taxes or implement the DSA in a way that hurts the US. Institutions.

The European Commission dismissed suggestions that the US is going soft on big tech, saying in an online statement on Tuesday that it had launched several investigations, including the deployment of X and Grok.

“Through actions like DSA, the EU is shaping Europe’s digital future. It supports, funds and regulates new technologies with the aim of strengthening democracy,” it said.

The rhetoric boiled over at times.

French President Emmanuel Macron last year called US resistance to European regulation a “geopolitical war”.

The Trump administration warned in December that Europe was facing “de-civilization” and urged the US to build “resistance to Europe’s current trajectory”.

Pablo Bastinduy, Spain’s consumer rights minister, told Le Grand Continent newspaper on Tuesday that his country’s goal of the crackdown was to “free itself from digital dependence on the United States,” adding that some platforms were being used to “destabilize European democracies within.”

A July 14 amendment to DSA guidelines to allow for national age limit laws prompted Denmark to move independently, its digitization ministry told Reuters.

Spain has been mulling measures for months, but the latest trigger to propose a ban on under-16s and a law holding social media CEOs accountable for hate speech, groc generation of non-consensual sexual images of minors, said Youth and Children Minister Cira Rego.

For Macron, who has blamed social media for fueling youth violence, the fatal stabbing of a school aide by a 14-year-old student in June was a turning point. He said he would push for an EU-wide ban on adolescent use or, if necessary, act unilaterally in France.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said it was an “eye-opening experience” to read Jonathan Haidt’s “Anxious Generation,” which argues that smartphones and social media are “rewiring” children’s brains.

“We’re running the biggest unchecked experiment with our children’s brains ever,” he said.