Maltese MEP Travels To Silicon Valley For Talks With Google, META, Apple And Other Big Tech Giants
Maltese MEP Alex Agius Saliba and a few other MEPs travelled to Silicon Valley, California, to hold meetings with some of the world’s largest technology companies.
Agius Saliba represented the Socialists and Democrats group on the eight-person EP delegation to Silicon Valley, where they met up with the META Corporation (which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram), Google, Apple, Airbnb, Ebay, Paypal, Hewlett Packard, Cloudfare, Uber, Salesforce and Stanford University.
The point of the meeting was to discuss the latest developments in the European and American digital sectors, including e-commerce, AI, consumer protection, online platforms and the sharing economy business model.
In particular, they discussed two upcoming pieces of EU legislation – the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act – to regulate social media platforms and algorithms and to introduce antitrust legislation. Agius Saliba was lead rapporteur on both these proposed pieces of legislation at European Parliament level.
“It is an honour to be involved in discussions with some of the largest companies in the world in this sector. I had the opportunity to explain my vision, and that of my colleagues, of a fairer industry that looks out for the dignity and interests of European citizens”, Agius Saliba stated.
In his meeting with META, Agius Saliba also called for an end to the discrimination against Maltese content creators, who aren’t allowed to generate income from in-stream ads on their Facebook videos like their counterparts from other countries are.
In an earlier video, Agius Saliba said that Facebook’s rationale for blocking Maltese users out of this market is that Malta is too small and therefore cannot be monetised enough.
This article is part of a content series called Ewropej. This is a multi-newsroom initiative part-funded by the European Parliament to bring the work of the EP closer to the citizens of Malta and keep them informed about matters that affect their daily lives. This article reflects only the author’s view. The European Parliament is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
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