Letter on proposal to reform the EU Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive

The European Parliament is currently amending the legislative proposal to reform the EU Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive. The draft report led by the Culture and Education (CULT) committee in the European Parliament contains particularly problematic proposals that would impose an obligation on ‘video-sharing platforms’ to monitor uploaded content to prevent users from being exposed to certain type of undesired content. Such an obligation would violate Article 15 of the E-Commerce Directive, which includes intermediary liability protections barring Member States from imposing general monitoring obligations on companies that host content uploaded by others. CDT has joined efforts with EuroISPA (association of largest EU internet service providers) and EDRi (European Digital Rights NGO) in a joint letter addressed to Members of the European Parliament CULT committee calling for the removal of the relevant amendment that imposes such obligation.