
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)
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
DSA Audits: Procedural Rules Leave Some Uncertainties
/in AnalysisAnna Morandini (PhD candidate at the European University Institute) Auditors hold significant power in reviewing the DSA compliance of very large online platforms and search engines (‘VLOPs’ and ‘VLOSEs’). Their role includes evaluating platform policies on systemic risk management. In October, the Commission adopted the delegated regulation on the performance of DSA audits (‘DRA’) […]
The extraterritorial implications of the Digital Services Act
/in AnalysisLaureline Lemoine & Mathias Vermeulen (AWO) As the enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA) is gathering speed, a number of non-EU based civil society and research organizations have wondered to what extent the DSA can have an impact on their work. This blog post provides a concise overview of the areas and provisions […]
Research Report on Disparate Content Moderation
/in AnalysisNaomi Appelman (Institute for Information Law, IViR – University of Amsterdam) We know that content moderation harms such as unjustified removals, shadowbans or blocks are not distributed equally. Time and again research and civil society reports show how social marginalisation is reproduced online (see for example: here, here, and here). And unfortunately, platform regulation coming […]