The Taming of Internet Platforms – A Look at the European Digital Services Act

Various regulatory attempts at taming global Internet platforms have entered the stage worldwide. These set out to renegotiate the cornerstones of a workable social contract and the expectations of the various participants in terms of social roles, acceptable behavior and reasonable means. In this vein, the European Digital Services Act (“DSA”) takes on questions of platforms’ responsibility for content moderation with an asymmetric system of due diligence obligations. This comprises the assessment of systemic risks that may arise from platform services, which includes risks resulting from the dissemination of illegal content or those that negatively affect the exercise of fundamental rights such as the freedom of expression and information. The fact that the responsibility for this systemic risk assessment and the deployment of mitigation measures against these risks rest primarily with very large online platforms (“VLOPs”) and their interpretive sovereignty raises various concerns. A major question is what cultural imprint this will inflict on fundamental rights in Europe and what normative values will eventually be accentuated.