The Digital Services Act (DSA) Observatory
The “Digital Services Act (DSA) Observatory” is a project run by the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam, which acts as a hub of expertise on the new EU Digital Services Act Regulation.
The DSA Observatory provides independent scholarly input and facilitates discussions regarding this important legislation, its implementation and enforcement. In particular, the DSA Observatory focuses on fundamental rights and democratic values as a means to confront platform power.
Launched in January 2021, the Observatory has followed the DSA political process closely. It engages with different stakeholders and brings together a broad network of platform regulation experts from academia, civil society, and government.
The project generates regular analysis on the DSA and relevant developments, including blog posts, policy reports, academic articles, and events including expert workshops, panels and conferences.
About The Digital Services Act (DSA) Observatory
The DSA Observatory
The Digital Services Act (DSA) Observatory is a new project run by the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam, which kicked-off in January 2021. The DSA Observatory acts as a hub of expertise with respect to the “Digital Services Act” package presented by the European Commission in December 2020.
Project team
The core project team for the DSA Observatory is composed of prof. Joris van Hoboken, Ilaria Buri, Paddy Leerssen, dr. Ronan Fahy, prof. Natali Helberger, prof. Martin Senftleben, dr. João Pedro Quintais and Doris Buijs.
Funding and collaboration with the Digital Legal Lab
The DSA Observatory is part of the “Digital Transformations of Decision-Making” research initiative of the Amsterdam Law School and contributes to the activities of the Digital Legal Lab, an interuniversity research centre on law and digital technologies run by a research network between four Dutch universities: Tilburg University, the University of Amsterdam, Radboud University Nijmegen and Maastricht University. This joint research initiative, the Digital Legal Studies Sector Plan for legal research is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW). The DSA Observatory has received funding from the Open Society Foundations and from the Civitates initiative (“Healthy Digital Public Sphere” programme) and the European Platform Publics Research Network (a collaboration with the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society and the Hans-Bredow-Institut), funded by Stiftung Mercator.
Where we focus on …
Europe / Brussels
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Justice
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Privacy
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Politics
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Research
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People
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Contact
The DSA Observatory team can be reached by email at:
dsaobservatory-ivir@uva.nl
Researching content moderation through platform transparency rules: the DSA as a research tool to address pro-Palestinian content censorship
/in Analysisby Valerie Bourjeily, Advanced LLM candidate in Technology Governance, University of Amsterdam Law School Academic Excellence Track (ACeT) Research Intern, ’24. 28 October 2024 The DSA aims to help researchers in understanding platform content moderation. This blog post discusses its relevance in researching the systemic censorship of pro-Palestinian content, and content moderation practices more […]
Embedded GenAI on Social Media: Platform Law Meets AI law
/in Analysisby Paddy Leerssen, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam 6 August 2024 Social media platforms are integrating generative AI features into their services. This post discusses how these features trigger overlapping obligations under the AI Act and the Digital Services Act. On 26 September 2024, Instagram and Facebook rolled out a new […]
The DSA’s first shadow banning case
/in Analysisby Paddy Leerssen, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam 6 August 2024 This post discusses a recent decision from the Amsterdam District Court, in which an end-user of X was awarded damages due to the platform’s undisclosed ‘shadow banning’ of their profile. An early victory for user rights: on 5 July 2024, […]