The DSA and Platform Regulation Conference 2026

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As the Digital Services Act (DSA) approaches its second anniversary of full applicability across the EU, the DSA Observatory at the University of Amsterdam will host its second international conference on ‘The DSA and Platform Regulation’. The event will take place at the Amsterdam Law School on 16-17 February 2026. The conference will reflect on the DSA and European platform regulation, including in its broader legal and political context, under the overall theme of platform governance and democracy.

Over the past two years, the DSA has moved from legal ambition to regulatory practice. The European Commission has launched formal proceedings against several Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines (VLOP/SEs), national regulators have begun asserting their roles, and platforms have published new transparency disclosures, including systemic risk assessments and audit reports. Delegated acts have helped clarify key procedures and Codes of Conduct have been integrated into the framework, while early efforts to operationalize researcher access and user redress mechanisms have begun to develop, if unevenly. And developments in related legal areas, like Artificial Intelligence, political advertising, online media, and the regulation of digital markets, continue to shape platform regulation more generally.

As the regulation moves into this new phase, a broader accountability ecosystem has emerged, with a variety of actors—including auditors, researchers, civil society organizations, fact-checkers, out-of-court dispute settlement bodies, and litigants—engaging with the DSA’s tools and testing their limits. At the same time, geopolitical developments have put significant pressure on the interpretation and enforcement of the DSA, giving increased significance to questions about the DSA and the political will to enforce European rules that aim to protect democratic values and fundamental rights.

With the DSA, the EU aimed to set a new global standard for platform regulation. Two years in, this conference brings together scholars, regulators, legal practitioners, industry representatives, and civil society experts to critically assess how the framework is working in practice and reflect on its capacity to deliver on its democratic promise.

The conference organizing committee invites paper abstracts (500–800 words) from across disciplines and professional backgrounds.

In particular, abstracts may reflect, though are not limited to, one or more of the following themes:

  • The operationalization of systemic risk regulation under the DSA: how platforms are identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks e.g. related to fundamental rights, elections, disinformation, gender-based violence, and youth mental health; challenges around risk definitions, benchmarking, and auditing practices;
  • The functioning of the DSA’s transparency architecture, including platform reporting obligations, recommender system and advertising disclosures, audit reports, researcher data access, and the Transparency Database; the extent to which transparency provisions succeed in empowering third parties to play a role in platform governance;
  • The role and effectiveness of co-regulatory instruments, such as the codes of conduct on disinformation and hate speech, as well as crisis protocols.
  • The politics of DSA enforcement: how cases are selected, the scope of Commission-led investigations, and the evolving relationship between EU institutions, national regulators, non-EU actors and civil society actors in shaping enforcement;
  • Legal and policy challenges around age verification and adult content regulation, including tensions between child protection goals and privacy rights;
  • The DSA and contested speech on war and genocide: how platform rules and enforcement have shaped what can be said about international conflicts and state violence, including in Ukraine and Palestine.
  • Access to justice issues for online harms and user rights, such as the effectiveness of notice-and-action procedures and user redress mechanisms, including out-of-court dispute settlement procedures;
  • The DSA’s relationship with other digital regulations, including the Digital Markets Act, European Media Freedom Act, AI Act, GDPR, Political Advertising Transparency Regulation, and EU Copyright law;
  • The emergence and role of new accountability actors, including auditors, trusted flaggers, out-of-court dispute settlement bodies, vetted researchers, fact-checkers, and strategic litigants;
  • The regulation of non-VLOP/SEs under the DSA, and how obligations are being implemented across the broader intermediary ecosystem;
  • The DSA in a contested geopolitical context: the impacts of government and platform resistance to EU oversight; taking stock of the ‘Brussels effect’ in shaping global platform governance.

Abstracts should be between 500-800 words, and submitted through Oxford Abstracts here. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 30 September 2025 (23.59 CEST).

Please note that abstracts should not be submitted anonymously and will be reviewed by the organising committee. Abstracts will be selected based on quality and potential to trigger high-level discussion on the conference’s themes.

Authors will be notified of acceptance by 31 October 2025. Accepted authors will be invited to present their work during the conference (15-minute presentations). Certain selected authors may also be invited to participate in panel discussions. We do not require accepted authors to submit full papers by the time of the conference, although it is encouraged.


Timeline 

Deadline for abstracts: 30 September 2025, by 23.59 (CEST) 

Notifications of acceptance: 31 October 2025

Conference: 16-17 February 2026

 

Registration and venue  

Registration will open in December 2025. The conference will be held in-person at the Amsterdam Law School (Nieuwe Achtergracht 166, 1018 WV Amsterdam) on 16-17 February 2026. Participants and presenters will need to cover their own travel and accommodation costs.


About the conference  

The conference is organised by the DSA Observatory, a project run by the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam, as part of its work within the DSA Research Network (a collaboration with the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society and the Hans-Bredow-Institut), funded by Stiftung Mercator.

 

Conference Organising Committee 

John Albert, University of Amsterdam

Ronan Fahy, University of Amsterdam 

Natali Helberger, University of Amsterdam 

Joris van Hoboken, University of Amsterdam 

Magdalena Jóźwiak, University of Amsterdam

Paddy Leerssen, University of Amsterdam 

João Pedro Quintais, University of Amsterdam  

 

Conference Programme Committee

Naomi Appelman, Weizenbaum Institute

Chinmayi Arun, Yale Law School

Peter Chapman, Knight-Georgetown Institute

Alissa Cooper, Knight-Georgetown Institute

Deirdre Curtin, European University Institute

Anna van Duin, University of Amsterdam

Catalina Goanta, Utrecht University

Robert Gorwa, WZB Social Science Centre

Inge Graef, Tillburg University

Rachel Griffin, Sciences Po

Franz Hofmann, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

Jeanette Hofmann, Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society

Martin Husovec, London School of Economics

Daphne Keller, Stanford Law School

Matthias Kettemann, University of Innsbruck

Eva Lievens, Ghent University

Tobias Mast, Leibniz Institute for Media Research

Pietro Ortolani, Radboud University

Alexander Peukert, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main

Benjamin Raue, Trier University

Hannah Ruschemeier, FernUniversität in Hagen

Irene Roche Laguna, European Commission

Wolfgang Schulz, Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society

Sebastian Schwemer, BI Norwegian Business School

Martin Senftleben, University of Amsterdam

Alexandre de Streel, University of Namur

Damian Tambini, London School of Economics

Rebekah Tromble, George Washington University

Suzanne Vergnolle, Conservatoire national des arts et métiers

Mathias Vermeulen, AWO

Claes de Vreese, University of Amsterdam

Folkert Wilman, European Commission

Lorna Woods, University of Essex

Nicolò Zingales, Fundação Getulio Vargas