“The Mapping marks an essential first step in strengthening our collective capacity to address risks posed by media services from third countries
As from 8 August 2025 the EU’s European Media Freedom Act (Regulation 2024/1083) comes fully into force. A media service means the provision of programmes or press publications, under the editorial responsibility of a media service provider, to the general public, by any means, in order to inform, entertain or educate.
Media service providers located outside the EU, for example in the United Kingdom, Singapore or Dubai, will be considered as subject to this new EU regime if their content targets or reaches audiences in the EU. The BBC, for example, would qualify as being subject to the regime.
For non-EU media service providers, the application of the Act means in practice that the national media regulatory authority in each EU Member State, and the newly established European Board for Media Services (the Board), which under the Act will coordinate measures by national regulatory authorities, must consider whether the media service provider and the media provided presents a serious and grave risk of prejudice to public security and defence.
Among many groups or activities to be considered by the Board are video-sharing platform providers (of which Alphabet Inc. (i.e. Google) owned YouTube is the leading example) and social influencers. While that is perhaps an obvious group for consideration, the reach of the Board could be extensive because, by analogy, actions by governments in the name of national security are often outside what most would naturally consider to be a national security issue (e.g. the recent US tariffs on steel and aluminium imports are based on national security concerns). Thus, for example, one EU institution has stated the EU must take action in particular against media capture by media moguls who are often in close relations with leading politicians in the country, or even governments of third countries. Some commentators have pointed to Elon Musk and X (formerly Twitter) as being relevant to this concern. X is formally considered a Very Large Online Platform and primarily subject to regulation under the EU’s Digital Services Act. Yet there is potential for overlap with the Media Freedom Act, for example in relation to media content moderation.
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