Last year when I was checking into a hotel, the desk person was wearing Meta glasses. I kindly asked them to take them off. They were annoyed. I said, “I do not consent to you looking at my credit card and ID with Meta glasses on.” My instincts were correct: www.bbc.com/news/article...
05.03.2026 15:27 — 👍 6111 🔁 2441 💬 93 📌 183
Undetected paid political advertising continues to be an issue for elections integrity.
Although Meta stopped serving political ads last Oct, Euractiv reports that Fidesz candidates placed 181 FB ads in January but only 19 of them were classified as political.
www.euractiv.com/news/hungary...
🧵
Trump wanting to cut all trade ties with Spain over use of US military bases is getting attention and some say Merz should've piped up more strongly.
For now, it's mostly rhetorical pressure ('waffle'), so the damage is limited. If it becomes any more concrete, the EU must decisively rebuke.
After months of wrangling and an epic list of delays, the Commission has finally released its Industrial Accelerator Act.
This could turn into one of the EU’s most consequential industrial policy files in years - and the proposal is honestly not a bad place to start.
Some quick thoughts:
A first concrete step towards the planned EU blueprint to counter FIMI and disinformation is a workshop on a "holistic approach to democratic resilience", scheduled for 27 March.
04.03.2026 07:08 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1
The Centre will have a secretariat in the Commission. There had been some infighting where it should be hosted.
The first technical meeting on 29 January was chaired by DG COMM, with DG JUST, DG CNECT, SG and the EEAS present. That could mean that the Centre’s secretariat is placed in DG COMM.
The “emerging priority areas for the first year include” developing tools to support resilient elections; an EU blueprint to counter FIMI and disinfo; launching a stakeholder platform; fostering capacity building and mutual learning; cooperations with candidate countries and involving citizens.
04.03.2026 07:08 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Democracy Shield Update:
On 24 Feb, the European Centre for Democratic Resilience was officially launched at the General Affairs Council.
Commissioner McGrath presented its upcoming priorities, although in still vague terms. Specific projects are supposed to be proposed and led by Member States.
Ich durfte heute einen Gastbeitrag für den Tagesspiegel beisteuern: es geht um Macrons verbleibende Macht in seinem letzten Amtsjahr, und wo er noch etwas bewegen kann.
Spoiler: Vieles ist noch möglich, aber bei Weitem nicht mehr alles.
Details im Artikel:
www.tagesspiegel.de/internationa...
📣 #NewPaper: In her latest policy position first published in @techpolicypress.bsky.social, @luisequaritsch.bsky.social looks at the effectiveness of the #DSA in recent national elections within the #EU and determines three risks that might be underappreciated. 👉 www.delorscentre.eu/en/publicati...
25.02.2026 10:09 — 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
There are election-related DSA proceedings ongoing against TikTok, Meta and X but the Commission has yet to publish a decision.
To keep the systemic risks framework credible and platforms incentivized to engage, the Commission should not allow predictable US backlash to chill enforcement. 8/8
Overall, the effectiveness of the DSA relies on platforms’ willingness to cooperate.
US Big Tech platforms have been reluctant to do so, and their incentive to comply may be weakening as the Trump administration signals political backing and threatens trade retaliation should platforms be fined. /7
In addition, the DSA and the relevant Commission guidelines do not offer operational benchmarks for what effective mitigation measures need to look like in the context of elections.
A future non-compliance decision could shed light on the Commission’s approach here. /6
What’s unclear is whether these apparent failures mean that the mitigation measures in place were insufficient under the DSA. Because the available data offers an incomplete picture, it is only an indicator. /5
20.02.2026 16:41 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Platforms claim that they had effective mitigation measures in place to address most identified risks. However, external observations made by CSOs and media often suggested otherwise – pointing out failures by platforms, e.g. to detect political ads or identify election-related misinformation. /4
20.02.2026 16:41 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0With regard to the identification of risks, there were three issues that were observed repeatedly but appear to be somewhat underappreciated by platforms: political advertising, influencers and asymmetric amplification of political candidates. /3
20.02.2026 16:41 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Across the three elections, “behavior”-related risks such as covert influence operations were widely reported on.
There were also content-related risks such as electoral misinformation and disinformation during all three elections but did not appear to be the public’s central concern. /2
How Has the DSA Performed in Protecting Election Integrity?
In this article for @techpolicypress.bsky.social, I looked back at recent national elections in Romania, Germany and Poland to assess how the systemic risks framework has fared. 🧵⬇️
www.techpolicy.press/how-has-the-...
Contrary to Trump administration claims that the European Commission is interfering in elections across Europe, the Commission has not yet published any DSA decision related to electoral processes and civic discourse, writes Luise Quaritsch.
19.02.2026 15:30 — 👍 9 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
On enforcing the DSA:
“Brussels will have to choose either to pull the trigger on potential enforcement actions against some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names or admit that, for now, its digital rulebook must run secondary to the bloc’s wider reliance on the US”
www.techpolicy.press/the-eus-onli...
Two-speed Europe, coalitions of the willing, core Europe - all different labels currently circling in the debate for same idea that way forward is no longer at EU27.
But the how is important, and I think different people understand different things by the concept.
Quick thread on legal options:
A small bombshell on rule of law conditionality from Luxembourg today: Advocate-General Capeta finds in her opinion that Commission was not allowed to unfreeze EU funds to Hungary in December 2023 and proposes that the Court of Justice annul the decision: curia.europa.eu/site/upload/...
Thread:
"The Mathias Corvinus Collegium stems from an endowment of more than €1.3 billion from the Hungarian state in 2021."
corporateeurope.org/en/2024/10/o...
Their arguments - unsurprisingly - are not very convincing.
By "recently uncovered" I guess the MCC means that they read @democracyreporting.bsky.social's press release 🫠
US Republicans have been falsely claiming election interference by the European Commission using the DSA, for example in Romania.
Now the Hungarian think tank MCC, with ties to Orbán, has jumped on the trend. An attempt to delegitimise the DSA framework and, potentially, the election results.
Tomorrow’s summit is a chance for EU leaders to stop chasing the wrong fixes — and finally sketch a response that matches the scale of Europe’s economic challenge.
Here, lucasguttenberg.bsky.social, @sandertordoir.bsky.social and I lay out what that could look like.
www.politico.eu/article/euro...
📍Today, the EC informed Meta that blocking third-party AI assistants from WhatsApp may breach EU competition rules.
ec.europa.eu/commission/p...
Senior state department official Sarah Rogers travelled to European cities in December and has spoken to key figures in Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK party about deploying grants to spread ‘American values’. ft.trib.al/Kx8ta8a
06.02.2026 02:41 — 👍 216 🔁 166 💬 72 📌 89
The EU Commission has preliminarily found TikTok in breach of the Digital Services Act over its addictive design — infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications & hyper-personalized recommendations. ec.europa.eu/commission/p...
06.02.2026 11:26 — 👍 188 🔁 99 💬 2 📌 5
While Europeans call for stricter enforcement of digital laws, French police investigate X, and Spain proposes new social media rules, the US House Republicans continue their "censorship" investigation into the DSA, claiming the EU interfered in multiple elections and censors content in the US.
05.02.2026 14:33 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0