Europe’s largest broadcasters and media organisations have pushed back against the European Union’s planned Digital Fairness Act (DFA), warning that its current design risks imposing the same obligations on regulated media companies as it does on largely unaccountable technology platforms.
The Digital Fairness Act, which the European Commission’s Justice chief Michael McGrath will propose towards the conclude of the year, seeks to tackle dark patterns, the addictive design of digital products, misleading influencer marketing, pricing practices, and subscription traps, among others.
The Association of Commercial Television and Video on Demand Services in Europe (ACT), whose members include Canal+, RTL, Mediaset, ITV, Paramount+, NBCUniversal, Walt Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Sky, and TF1 Groupe, informed McGrath and EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen in an April 21 letter that the legislation’s one-size-fits-all approach could harm the media industest.
The Act could apply the same obligations to “structurally distinct actors without sufficient differentiation based on risk, function or market power,” the ACT stated in the letter seen by Reuters.
“New measures must focus on the segment of the digital environment where significant responsibility gaps persist, rather than our well-regulated sectors that already uphold high editorial standards,” the group stated.
Signatories to the letter include the Association of European Radios, global streaming alliance Beyond Mainstream, the European Magazine Media Association, the European Publishers Council, the European VOD Coalition, and the Motion Picture Association EMEA.
The industest groups further cautioned that certain digital features frequently cited as problematic are not inherently harmful. Design elements such as autoplay, recommconcludeer systems, and personalised advertising are vital revenue streams for the media and creative industries, the groups argued, and should not be treated the same as manipulative practices on unregulated platforms.
They warned that a blanket approach could have a disproportionate impact on low-risk but democracy-sensitive sectors, and called instead for a proportionate, evidence-based framework that tarobtains genuine gaps in digital accountability.
The European Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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