ARTICLES / ANALYSIS

Max van Drunen, Natali Helberger, Wolfgang Schulz, and Claes de Vreese The EU is set to complement the DSA with a new regulation on (targeted) political advertisements. In this piece we highlight how the regulation’s definition of political advertisements and enforcement mechanisms threaten freedom of expressio Right now, the exclamation above is just a title. […]

Last week, we sent our first DSA Observatory newsletter to our subscribers. Please consider subscribing to our newsletter to receive updates on our activities and research and to follow the broader developments around the Digital Services Act. You can read an online version of our first newsletter here.     Photo by Mathyas Kurmann on […]

Paddy Leerssen The DSA’s most demanding rules are directed at the largest platforms: Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs). This blog post offers a quick overview on two of the most important obligations for these large services, with more than 45 million monthly average active users: risk management, and […]

After almost two years, the DSA has entered into force. In the mean time, a new legislative proposal has been published by the Commission in September 2022: the Media Freedom Act (MFA). Both regulations caused a lot of debate, about – among other things – the so-called “media exemption”. This media exemption could give media a special position, as they would get prior notice from platforms before content moderation decisions. The exemption did not make it into the DSA, but the debate around the exemption has been revitalized with the newly proposed Article 17 MFA, which seems similar to the earlier discussed exemption. In this blog post, we will look into how the MFA tries to define “media service providers”, what Article 17 MFA actually entails and if the critical commenters calling Article 17 MFA the new media exemption can be justified. We will see that this discussion is a bit more complex, mainly due to the complicated interplay between the MFA and the Platform to Business (P2B) Regulation.

In this second part of the blog post on the implications of the DSA on journalism, we look into the safety of journalists and other media actors. Online harassment of journalists is a widely-reported topic, but nevertheless still increasing problem. What DSA provisions are the most promising for ensuring and increasing that much-needed safe climate for journalism online? And what actors, beside online platforms, can play their part using some of the DSA provisions to benefit journalism?

Twitter’s ‘Moderation Research Consortium’ now accepts applications by all interested researchers. DSA Observatory Researcher Pim ten Thije looks into the TMRC’s compliance with Article 40 of the Digital Services Act on data access and scrutiny. He recaps the DSA’s access obligations for researchers and governments and discusses what Twitter will need to change to be compliant.

The results of this empirical survey suggest that the available remedies in the Netherlands offer insufficient access to justice for the online harm people experience.

DSA Observatory Researcher Pim ten Thije clarifies the DSA’s adoption, entry into force and application dates. When will the new far-reaching obligations apply to (very large) online platforms, when will national regulators be required to be in place, when will the European Commission assume its new regulatory powers, and when exactly will the DSA be the law of the European Union?

Ilaria Buri and Joris van Hoboken Introduction The supervision and enforcement structure of the DSA proposal has been described from the beginning as a strong one. Elements which contribute to strengthening the enforcement chapter include the involvement of the European Commission in enforcing the rules vis à vis the very large online platforms (VLOPs) and […]

dr. Joan Barata   The process of adoption of the Digital Services Act (DSA) has just reached a very important and advanced stage. In the early hours of 23 April 2022, the so-called trilogue negotiations successfully ended with an agreement among the EU legislative bodies. The text proposed by the European Commission in mid-December 2020 […]

The Markup‘s founder Julia Angwin interviewed Joris van Hoboken, one of the leaders of the DSA Observatory project, to discuss the recent political agreement reached by the EU co-legislators on the Digital Services Act (“DSA”) regulation. Newsletter: Hello World by Julia Angwin Understanding the Digital Services Act April 30, 2022 08:00 ET Hello, friends, You […]

Dr. Joan Barata   1. Introduction The process of adoption of the DSA has now entered the phase of the so-called trilogue negotiations, aiming at reaching an agreement between the two most relevant legislative bodies: the Council and the Parliament. This phase started after the adoption by the Parliament, on 22 January 2022, of a […]

João Pedro Quintais (University of Amsterdam – Institute for Information Law (IViR)/DSA Observatory) and Sebastian Felix Schwemer (University of Copenhagen, Centre for Information and Innovation Law (CIIR); University of Oslo, Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law (NRCCL)) published a new paper, in which they explore the interaction of the Digital Services Act’s rules with […]

On behalf of the European Copyright Society, DSA Observatory’s researcher João Pedro Quintais (IViR, University of Amsterdam), together with Alexander Peukert (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main), Martin Husovec (London School of Economics), Martin Kretschmer (CREATe, University of Glasgow), Peter Mezei (University of Szeged), issued a comment on “Copyright and the Digital Services Act”. Copyright enforcement online is a major issue in the context […]

Ronan Ó Fathaigh (Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam)   The purpose of this report is to provide a brief overview of the Irish government’s position on the European Commission’s proposal for a Digital Services Act (DSA). It first sets out Ireland’s position based on publicly-available documents and media reporting; then provides the broader […]

Clémént Perarnaud (Brussels School of Governance, BSOG-VUB)   Since the first rounds of negotiations on the DSA proposal, Spain has been an active member state in the Council of the EU at the working group level. Spain is among the countries which shared a position paper to the rest of the delegations in the Council […]

Naomi Appelman (Institute for Information Law, IViR – University of Amsterdam) The position of Germany on the DSA proposal Recent reporting shed light onto the German position in the EU negotiations for the Digital Services Act (DSA) (see Netzpolitik, Tagesspiegel and Euractiv). Central to its position in these negotiations is the possible tension between Germany’s […]

  This discussion paper by IViR – DSA Observatory researchers Ilaria Buri and Joris van Hoboken provides a critical overview of the context and substantive provisions of the Digital Services Act (“DSA”) draft regulation presented by the European Commission in December 2020. This analysis aims at informing the public debate around this landmark legislative initiative, […]

Ilaria Buri (Institute for Information Law, IViR – University of Amsterdam) The Italian position on the DSA proposal After the presentation of the DSA and DMA proposal in December 2020, the European Policies Department and the Ministry of Economic Development were identified as the governmental departments respectively responsible for the definition of the Italian position […]

In September 2021, the Verfassungsblog and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition co-hosted an online symposium, “To Break Up or Regulate Big Tech? Avenues to Constrain Private Power in the DSA/DMA Package”. “The concentration of private power in the digital realm is not tenable – on this there is consensus. It extends across […]

In September 2021, the Verfassungsblog and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition co-hosted an online symposium, “To Break Up or Regulate Big Tech? Avenues to Constrain Private Power in the DSA/DMA Package”. “The concentration of private power in the digital realm is not tenable – on this there is consensus. It extends across […]

By Britt van den Branden, Sophie Davidse and Eva Smit*   This blogpost is part one of three. Blogposts 2 and 3 will follow soon. Just before last year’s Christmas day, the European Commission published a proposal for a Digital Services Act (DSA). The proposal introduces a new range of harmonised obligations for digital services […]

    By Catherine Armitage, Johnny Ryan and Ilaria Buri The relationship between the spread of harmful content and the business models that fund it is a preoccupation for many policymakers today. Political momentum is building around the idea that banning ‘surveillance advertising’ could be the answer. This has translated into a variety of different […]