EAVI Conversations Podcast hosts Paolo Cesarini, Chair of the EDMO Executive Board
Paolo Cesarini, Chair of the EDMO Executive Board, appeared on the latest episode of the EAVI Conversations Podcast. The European Association for Viewers Interests (EAVI), a Brussels-based non-profit organization, advocates for media literacy and citizen empowerment, aiming to strengthen democratic participation through informed engagement with media.
The conversation opened with a reflection on the rise of Generative AI and how to overcome the fear around it. Cesarini warned of a dual risk: that delegating cognitive abilities to a digital tool can lead to a decrease in confidence in human capacity, and that “even genuine information, genuine products of creativity are being perceived as a product of artificial intelligence and not human”.
The discussion then turned to the European Union’s digital media competence and its policy landscape. According to Cesarini, the EU has built “a very solid, a very complete, not only regulatory but policy framework, which combines regulatory aspects, but also non-regulatory instruments”. These instruments, Cesarini clarifies, are fact-checking, media literacy and research, which provide essential support for the effective implementation of regulations.
The core of the conversation was the Digital Services Act (DSA) and its implications for Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs). Cesarini highlighted that the shift from a voluntary Code of Conduct to a more binding Code of Practice (CoP), triggered significant resistance among platforms, some of which withdrew from their initial commitments.
This resistance, he suggested, reflects what has been called the “Washington, D.C. effect”, a justification for the suppression of dissenting voices by claiming reasons of free speech. “They’re emboldened by this new wave of free speech absolutism that in reality is nothing else but a suppression of free speech undercover,” Cesarini said, pointing to examples such as recent government actions in Serbia to silence fact-checkers.
Platforms’ withdrawal from the CoP happened under the pretext that this would have been a tool for censorship. In reality, however, their stance is based on a misconception, because general regulations – like the ones enforced under the DSA – can’t actually stop content from being created, shared, or reshared.
Looking ahead, Cesarini emphasized that “we are no longer in a game of self-regulation; we are in a game of co-regulation”. Under the DSA, when the European Commission identifies a systemic risk, VLOPs and VLOSEs will be faced with a choice: either subscribe to the Code of Practice, therefore creating a safe harbor for themselves, or demonstrate that the mitigation measures they have adopted are sufficient to shield them from sanctions.