EU crackdown misses Big Tech targets

European laws and proposals meant to rein in tech giants are inadvertently empowering them. The laws — governing everything from privacy to copyright to content filtering — stem from concerns about the behavior of big platforms, like YouTube and Facebook. But big companies have more resources to comply with complicated regulations than small firms. The European Parliament recently passed a directive that would overhaul its copyright law and would force platforms to impose strict filters for copyright violations or face fines. Regulatory analysts argue that the law seems manageable for Google and Facebook, while some activists say it would crush smaller firms.

The big question is whether EU-initiated regulations will be somehow copied in the US. Even though the EU has taken the lead in regulating the platforms, most analysts agree that some of its proposals would be hard to implement in the U.S. because they are at odds with America's culture of free speech and free markets and — at least in the current political environment — less appetite for big government regulations.