Google announces it’s going to intentionally violate EU law

Google has told the EU it will not add fact checks to search results and YouTube videos or use them in ranking or removing content, despite the requirements of a new EU law, according to a copy of a letter obtained by Axios.

[…]

In a letter written to Renate Nikolay, the deputy director general under the content and technology arm at the European Commission, Google’s global affairs president Kent Walker said the fact-checking integration required by the Commission’s new Disinformation Code of Practice “simply isn’t appropriate or effective for our services” and said Google won’t commit to it.
↫ Sara Fischer at Axios

Imagine if any one of us, ordinary folk told the authorities we were just not going to follow the law. We’re not going to pay our taxes because tax law “simply isn’t appropriate or effective for our services”. We’re not going to follow traffic laws and regulations because doing so “simply isn’t appropriate or effective for our services”. We’re not going to respect property laws because doing so “simply isn’t appropriate or effective for our services”. We’d be in trouble within a heartbeat. We’d be buried in fines, court cases, and eventually, crippling debt, bankruptcy, and most likely end up in prison.

The arrogance with which these American tech giants willfully declare themselves to be above EU laws and regulations is appalling, and really should have far more consequences than it does right now. Executives should be charged and arrested, products and services banned and taken off the shelves, and eventually, the companies themselves should be banned from operating within the EU altogether. Especially with the incoming regime in the US, which will most likely grant the tech giants even more freedom to do as they please, the EU needs to start standing up against this sort of gross disrespect.

The consequences for a corporation knowingly breaking the law should be just as grave as for an individual citizen knowingly breaking the law.