According to Salli, the rules of Gigantic Tech should be left to the fresh administration entering the White House. “Big Tech should be regulated by their home continent… This should be done first and foremost in the US.”
President-elect Donald Trump has been vague on how he would regulate Gigantic Tech, suggesting that “something” needs to be done about Google but hinting that breaking up the company may fail too far.
Salli’s critics are concerned about the way her arguments overlap with Meta’s. As Bram Vranken, a researcher at Corporate Observatory Europe, a charity that tracks lobbying, points out open lettersigned by 49 industry figures, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and posted on Meta’s website, which reflects Salli’s position that AI companies should be able to apply Europeans’ data to innovate.
“She has an agenda that is very, very close to her former employer,” she says. “It has a negative impact on trust in EU policy when someone who has been a lobbyist goes to Parliament to repeat the same theses.” Salla maintains that her time at Meta has not changed her views. “I spent ten years talking about digital regulation before I joined Meta,” she says. “I have absolutely no connection with this company… It’s a great company and I don’t own any stock in it.”
Salla is among more than 700 other Members of the European Parliament. But past debates on technology policy show that only a few outspoken MEPs can shape the law, says Vranken. “So if he plays it right, he could also have quite a significant impact on political positions [her group] takes EPP.” German MEP Andreas Schwab, a supporter of the Digital Markets Act who has so far been one of the EPP’s most prolific Gigantic Tech members, told WIRED in March that the fresh rules should push the European internet to “change for the better.”
Salla expects one of the biggest challenges over the next five years to come from the suggestion that the EU needs more technology regulation to fill gaps in existing rules. “This worries me very much,” he says. In Brussels, people are already making suggestions Digital Justice Act as a response to problems ranging from addictive phone design to gloomy patterns and influencer marketing. However, Salla believes that the EU should focus on enforcing existing rules rather than proposing fresh rules.
“We need to provide our companies with a stable investment environment,” he argues, “where we don’t change rules and legislation all the time.”