Speech by Martin Ajdari, President of Arcom, at the Viginum Forum

Check against delivery,

Commissioner,

Ladies and Gentlemen

Mr. Head of Viginum,

Madam President (of Sorbonne University),

Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all, I'd like to congratulate Viginum for organizing this forum, which is a very edifying illustration of the mobilization of the authorities, in their various forms, against the manipulation of information.

I am particularly honored to speak after Commissioner Thierry Breton, whose impressive record I, like many others, salute. We at the French Superior Audiovisual Council for the distribution and protection of intellectual property on the internet (French regulatory authority for audiovisual and digital communication - Arcom) - are well placed to measure this, as this authority was created three years ago from the merger of the French Superior Audiovisual Council and Hadopi, and its remit extends from audiovisual regulation to the protection of intellectual property (fight agains piracy) and now to the circulation of content on digital networks. We are therefore directly concerned by the progress made with the introduction of the DSA, and that's what I'd like to talk to you about today.

As your debates have underlined, information is an invaluable "public good" for our democracies. Without professional, objective information, there can be no public debate, and no informed voting. It's no coincidence that information is the target of so many attacks. And information is at the heart of Arcom's missions, whose competencies in this area, laid down by law, have developed with the times.

At the end of the 80s, to establish the French Superior Audiovisual Council's legitimacy after the creation of the first private channels, the legislator entrusted it with the mission of ensuring respect for honest information. Later, in 2016, faced with the proliferation of news channels, and the fear of a race for sensationalism (with the rise of BFM and Vivendi's takeover of i-Télé), the so-called Bloche law extended the regulator's remit, entrusting it with the task of guaranteeing, in addition to the honesty of information, its independence and plurality.

Shortly afterwards, in response to the foreign interference observed during the 2017 presidential election, the so-called Infox law of December 22, 2018 imposed a "duty of cooperation" on platforms during election periods, and entrusted supervision of this to the French Superior Audiovisual Council, which then took its first steps into digital regulation.

At the same time, since 2004, the regulatorhas been able to demand that a satellite operator cease the diffusion of a foreign channel inciting hatred or disturbing public order (proceedings which were exercised against the Lebanese channel Al Manar in July 2004, again in response to external threats). And most recently, Arcom made use of the power conferred on it by the SREN law to abide by the legal sanctions imposed by the European Union on Russian media.

Thus, a multifaceted arsenal has been built up over time, and sometimes in response to threats. Despite its merits, this national approach has come up against the limits of the recent rise in digital services.

Hence the need to change scale and method, with the adoption in 2023 of the European regulation on digital services, the RSN, which aims primarily to identify and mitigate the "systemic" risks induced by the largest social networks or platforms, while guaranteeing freedom of communication.

These risks are well known, and can be roughly divided into three categories:

• risks to individuals (online hate, harm to persons under 18, fraud and consumer abuse);
• more global risks for society (in terms of public health, electoral interference and disinformation) ;
• and economic risks (intellectual property in particular).

I'd like to make one point of clarification: the so-called "systemic" logic of the RSN, which is often a source of misunderstanding, consists not in defining a priori what needs to be regulated, but in giving platforms the tools to identify, with all stakeholders and in particular plaintiffs, the risk(s) against which action needs to be taken - risks which may vary greatly from one platform to another (e.g. an addictive algorithm or a misleading interface), or even develop over time.

The RSN therefore imposes strengthening obligations on what are summoned "very large platforms and very large search engines", each of which has more than 45 million users (10% EU population - quote?). For example:

1 /obligation to identify the risks inherent in their operation and mitigate them, for example by modifying their algo or organizing moderation ;

2/ obligation to keep open registers of advertisements and their targeting criteria, which can be decisive in influencing an election;

3/ to open up their data to accredited researchers. Because this data is the "nerve of regulation" and the only means of ensuring the relevance of measures taken to mitigate risks.

And in the event of non-compliance with these obligations, these major platforms can face very heavy legal sanctions: a penalty notice equal to 6% of worldwide sales, or even temporary suspension of access to the platform in question.

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Now that these principles have been established, the challenge is to successfully deploy the RSN at both European and national levels. Here are a few examples:

Firstly , at European level: the European Commission has designated 25 very large platforms or search engines. By last November, 19 of them had assessed their systemic risks and presented measures to mitigate them. At the same time, several (Meta, TikTok, X, Aliexpress...) have been the subject of formal investigations opened by the Commission for just over a year.

With regard to elections, just yesterday, the very largest platforms took part in a "stress test" on interference and information manipulation, in anticipation of the Romanian presidential election scheduled for May 4 (the first round of this election having been cancelled last November due to suspicions of foreign interference via TikTok).

In concrete terms, this is a full-scale crisis management exercise, involving civil society, the regulator and the Commission, and consisting of deploying foreign interference scenarios to test the platforms' ability to respond within a given timeframe.

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At national level, Arcom was designated "coordinator for digital services" in 2024. To use a footballing metaphor, we could say that we are both the French player on the European platform regulation team, and a sort of "cheerleader" for the relevant national authorities, be they the DGCCRF and the French national data protection agency, invested by law, but also natural partners like Viginum.

For several months now, the RSN has been within the scope of our daily work as regulators:

In 2024, we put together a national dossier of information for the Commission's investigation into the addictive risks of the TikTokLite service. The opening of these proceedings was enough to convince the platform to abandon the service in Europe as early as August 2024.

Another example: last January, Arcom forwarded to the Commission and its Irish counterpart, competent for X, the complaints of two French members of parliament, questioning the massive promotion of content from Elon Musk's account, as part of the German election campaign. And we are currently carrying out a study to identify the existence of notice bias, and to inform the Commission where appropriate.

Just last night, we published the list of four new trusted flaggers, which are non-profit associations whose RSNs make provision for them to report manifestly illegal content to platforms, with the latter being obliged to remove it quickly. We are going to continue with these appointments, which are an essential link in the regulation chain.

Finally, on the electoral front, in March 2024 we adopted recommendations to help platforms fight agains manipulation during the European and legislative elections. And this can cover very simple things like: making sure platforms set up in-house teams dedicated to elections and trained in electoral law; designating contacts for electoral authorities, so they can act quickly in the event of suspicion; or, once again, clearly displaying advertising of a political nature. Several exchanges were organized to put all this in place.

Just a few years ago, this kind of dialogue was by no means self-evident. Today, it's helping to show a "regulation culture" to players who were previously far removed from it.

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As you can see, a lot of things are falling into place. But if we really want the potential of this original regulation architecture to become a reality, we need to move up a gear, at the same time as the Commission responds.

I'd like to mention three areas of work.

The first is to continue our efforts to secure public debate and elections in France. Our collaboration with Viginum is decisive in this respect. The agreement signed in July focuses on detecting the risk of manipulation linked to foreign interference, and is based on the principle of sharing information, as our skills and expertise are highly complementary.

Today, we need to go further, and Arcom is ready to work on a more structured rapid response scheme during election periods, as made provision for in the European Code of Conduct, based on three objectives: 1/facilitate the exchange of information between public authorities, 2/mobilize the media (especially fact-checkers), researchers and civil society, and 3/better coordinate with platforms.

The second is to make full use of FP risk assessment reports and the data they make available. This considerable mass of information cannot be analyzed by the administrative authorities alone.

In particular, we need to mobilize the world of research and civil society, which have indispensable human means and expertise at their disposal. We need to raise their awareness, and no doubt also support them, why not by summoning the support of private foundations that might be able to finance them.

Generally speaking, we need to step up our efforts to educate civil society, our citizens and their elected representatives, so that they can grasp the potential of the SNS. This is certainly one of the challenges of digital citizenship.

The last axis, at the heart of Arcom's mission, is to strengthen the economy of media producing professional information. Fighting misinformation is all very well and necessary. But so is producing quality, independent and reliable information. This is one of the aims of the European regulation on media freedom adopted on April 11, 2024 (EMFA), which will be effective from August, and of the exciting work of the Etats généraux de l'information, which has produced many useful proposals.

This work should - I hope - find legislative expression in the coming months, in order to strengthen the independence of editorial teams, the transparency of media capital and the control of concentrations, and therefore the credibility and plurality of information, as well as its economic model.

Thus, between the RSN, the EMFA and the EGI, an overall approach is being put in place to consolidate the production of professional information in Europe and contribute to our sovereignty (in addition to defensive measures against interference). Arcom and its partners intend to play their full part.

I'd now like to hand over to Benoît Loutrel, a member of the Arcom Board and Viginum's Scientific Advisory Board, who will moderate this fascinating round-table discussion. Thank you all very much.