PL Member of the European Parliament Alex Agius Saliba has made an appeal to Facebook to ‘cease its discrimination against Maltese content creators,’ a statement by the PL read. 

Agius Saliba is currently in Silicon Valley in the United States of America as part of a European Parliament delegation visiting leading global players in the information technology sector. 

“As the Vice-President of the Socialist and Democrats in the European Parliament responsible for the digital sector and a Member of the European Parliament who had worked on the Digital Services Act (…) 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 said. 

During this visit to the United States of America, the delegation of 8 members of the European Parliament discussed the latest developments in the European digital sector and similar updates in the American continent, the proliferation of e-commerce, artificial intelligence, consumer protection, online platforms and the sharing economy business model. 

In a meeting with Vice-President of big-tech corporation META, Alex Agius Saliba made an appeal to Facebook to cease its discrimination against Maltese content creators. He made the point that these content creators are being excluded from using in-stream advertisements and therefore cannot earn money from advertisements like their foreign counterparts. 

The European Parliamentary delegation also paid a visit to the head quarters of the META corporation (joint owner of Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram), Google, Apple, Airbnb, Ebay, Paypal, Hewlett Packard, Cloudfare, Uber, Salesforce and the famed Stanford University. Agius Saliba explained how the Digital Service Act legislation is crucial to these companies and that he believes that constant dialogue with these players remains essential to ensure the optimal effectiveness of these legislative initiatives. Furthermore, he also argued that trans-continental cooperation is necessary to guarantee that these laws leave the desired effect on the lives of European consumers. 

Agius Saliba also led a meeting of the European delegation with the international corporation Apple. During this meeting, Agius Saliba explained the work being carried out on the Common Charger proposal at European level and continued his discussions with representatives of Apple on ways how they can integrate the common charger in their new products.