By Miquel Sánchez & Benedetta Zimone
The Chinese, American and European governments are pressuring big tech companies to amp up their influence in the digital sphere, leading experts believe.
On the occasion of the presentation of her latest book “Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology”, interns of AEJ Belgium interviewed Anu Bradford, a trade expert and the Henry L. Moses Distinguished Professor of Law and International Organization at the Columbia Law School.
During the interview on the sidelines of a CEPS Conference she explained the meaning of the “Brussels effect”, an expression coined by Bradford in her first book “The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World” as well as providing a deeper analysis into her research into so-called ‘digital empires.’
AEJ Belgium: In one of your previous books (The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World” – 2020) you talk about the “Brussels Effect”. Could you explain what this is and how it affects global technology?
Anu Bradford: By the term ‘Brussels Effect’, I refer to the European Union’s unilateral ability to regulate the global marketplace. Simply by regulating the single market, European regulations have an impact outside of the EU, because the EU is one of the largest and wealthiest consumer markets in the world, and very few global companies can afford not to trade with the EU.
So as the price for access to the European market, they need to comply with European regulations. But often they conclude that it is in their interest to extend those regulations across the local production and local conduct because they want to avoid the cost of complying with multiple different regulatory regimes.
This way, through these global practices of the multinational companies, the European regulations often are filled outside as well, and that is now happening in digital space too with GDPR, as it is probably the primary example. However, we have also examples with the AI Act… whether the Digital Market Act, or the Digital Services Act. They also affect content moderation practices, even outside of the EU, the way that they already affect the hate speech code and the disinformation code we’re having.
What motivated you to write “Digital Empires” and what is the reason you started to explore this phenomenon?
I guess after the conversations that I had following the “Brussels effect”, everybody wanted to talk about digital. It seemed to be that that’s where there was much momentum in terms of the legislative ambitions of the EU.
But also back then, there were geopolitical tensions between the US and China that were accelerating. The tech wall was intensifying, and I was curious to explore Europe’s plays in the world, in the era of heightening tech competition.
It has a similar sort of “flavor”, if you like, to the Brussels effect. I’m interested in Europe’s global role and I felt that it was particularly pertinent to understand what happens in the digital domain, because it’s one of those areas that is touching our everyday lives and in many ways. That, I think, was the motivation for it.
Could you tell us what was the most important challenge that you found in your research?
I am worried about the effects of the US-China tech rivalry, and the resulting move towards the coupling of tech ecosystems. I don’t think we’re going to see full-blown decoupling, but it’s very costly for the global economy. It unsettles and feeds further geopolitical tensions, and it makes it harder for Europe to navigate its place in that world. That is one battle that I want to fight.
I most want to talk about the future of political democracy… One thing that I know is that it seems to be that liberal democracy can get lost in one of two ways. One is that in Europe and the US we lose the horizon for the battle of China, and the world increasingly turns digital authoritarian. I found it very hard when I was looking at this to make the case that much of the world would not be drawn to the Chinese model.
[China] doesn’t want the European rights to be modelled. Even though European rights are modelled in the democratic world, there is still a big part of the world that is very drawn to the more authoritarian ideas. That’s one way for this sort of liberal democracy to lose.
But the other one is this vertical battle I talk about: that liberal democracy can also deteriorate if the US and the EU lose the vertical battle for tech companies. That was another challenge that I worry about because the US has a very hard time passing any legislation.
The Europeans can pass legislation to control the tech companies, but they are struggling to enforce the regulations. At the same time, China doesn’t have a problem with passing regulations, and China doesn’t have a problem enforcing them.
Some critics argue the fact that the concentration of power is in the hands of these big technology giants could lead to the erosion of privacy and the spread of misinformation. Do you think that the American model is too free? Should it be regulated?
I think there was an era of digital transformation in the early stages when the American model was probably well suited, but I don’t think it is well suited anymore. These tech companies have simply come to be too powerful. I think it’s too permissive today because it has set these tech companies free to become big and influential.
We worry about their economic power, political power and cultural power and the ability of the regulators to constrain them. I think the US model today is no longer well suited to handle the challenges of today’s digital economy.
Do you think that in Europe, we can talk about censorship?
I don’t know if I call it censorship… Europeans are committed to freedom of expression and very conscious about the dangers of censorship but the Europeans also feel that freedom in society doesn’t prevail with absolute free speech. We also need to control harmful speech, including disinformation and hate speech.
However, I don’t call that censorship, I call it being responsible, an attempt to align different societal values, one of which is dignity, and the other one is preventing democracy from deteriorating. Disinformation undermines public discourse and the ability to have the right information based on societal conversations and decision-making.
But it’s different from the American model that believes that there should be unlimited free speech ultimately. Even harmful speech concerns society.
Anu Bradford concluded our interview by claiming that there is a global consensus that technology urgently needs very strict rules and laws, especially in those digital empires.
However, she pointed out that at the last AI safety summit which took place last week in the UK, no real concrete conclusion had been reached.
On one hand, the American model offers an optimistic approach to regulation and innovation. On the other hand, the Chinese government exploits social platforms as a propaganda tool. The European model aims to be a middle ground, but it is ultimately not prepared to defend itself from these two very powerful models.