This event organised by the InfoSoc working group features presentations by Francisco de Abreu Duarte, Stefan Luca, Dr Michael Monterossi, and Anna Morandini, who will explore the DSA’s cathedral by viewing it through the lens of different legal areas.
The Digital Services Act (DSA) is a full-fledged legislative proposal that sets out an accountability and transparency framework with particular regard to gatekeepers. The proposed approach is expected to have a significant impact on consumers, companies and public institutions in the EU.
Abstracts:
Francisco de Abreu Duarte (EUI) – The New Digital Equilibrium: Is the DSA ready for Web 3.0?
This presentation introduces the concept of digital equilibrium in the European Union (EU). It advances the argument that the digital public sphere has been consistently shaped in Europe by both public (state and the supranational institutions) and corporate forces (online platforms), constituting two sides of a regulatory spectrum. By appealing to the notion of equilibrium, the article describes how public and private forces maintained the Internet in a healthy regulatory balance, which shielded it from regulatory extremism. This equilibrium is then analyzed in the light of the new Digital Services Act. There it is suggested that the DSA attempts to maintain this old equilibrium by not changing the foundations of the E-Commerce Directive. The presentation concludes by arguing that by doing so, the DSA is not suited to target the birth of Web 3.0.
Stefan Luca (EUI) – Shedding Tiers, the DSA’s Media Exemption That Never Was
Moderation may be intrinsic to platforms (Gillespie, 2018), yet equality before moderation is not. While tiered governance (Caplan & Gillespie, 2020) tends to be a deliberately obscured platform practice, this talk focuses on an unusually public call for different treatment, i.e. the so-called media exemption that ultimately failed to make it into the Digital Services Act as adopted by the European Parliament.
We will examine the calls for a media exemption and the opposition they elicited, contrasting them to the platforms’ existing newsworthiness exemptions, as well as more principled approaches involving journalism credibility initiatives (such as Newsguard or the Journalism Trust Initiative). This will provide an opportunity to reflect on platforms' tiered governance practices and regulators’ engagement with them.
Dr. Michael Monterossi (University of Turin) – The EU Proposal for DSA: Rewriting the Terms and conditions of Platform Governance in the Digital Sphere
The increasing importance of issues relating to the exercise of rights and freedoms in the digital environment has led the European Union to draft a new proposal for a Regulation on digital services. In a broader perspective, the Digital Services Act testifies to a new EU approach to the regulation of internet service providers (and, more generally, of digital platforms), which can also be found in the first legislative initiatives under the 2020 European Data Strategy. Faced with the increasing regulatory capacity of platforms, the European Union seems to be abandoning a regulatory framework based only on the mere imposition of obligations, in favour of a system in which these subjects are directly vested with powers (regulatory, sanctioning, monitoring powers) to be exercised over the users of the services offered. The presentation intends to analyse the consequences of such an approach, by paying particular attention both to the impact these new rules may exercise on the contractual relationship between the platform and its user (and thus on the terms and conditions which regulate that relationship) and to the ability of such an approach to effectively mitigate the risks of illicit conducts in the digital sphere.
Anna Morandini (EUI) – Taming the Modern Peithos: Platform Accountability for Content Moderation in the DSA
Will the Digital Services Act mark a notable move towards holistic platform accountability? It addresses the societal risks inherent to platforms’ – and particularly gatekeepers’ – moderation of speech, innovatively complementing liability-centred notice and take down obligations with systemic approaches. Particularly very large online platforms will be obliged to provide enhanced transparency reports, perform risk assessments, and implement risk mitigation measures. These risk analysis obligations have been described as the ‘pandora’s box’ of the proposal. In outlining the proposed scheme from a perspective of platform accountability, the presentation illustrates the novel toolbox the DSA offers to hold platforms accountable for content moderation policies – whether ranking and (non-)removal of content or suspension of accounts. It aims to promote the discussion on two pertinent questions: will the framework live up to the multi-faceted demands of (platform) accountability literature and will it produce notable practical effects or remain a paper tiger?
Speakers’ Bios:
Francisco de Abreu Duarte is a PhD Researcher at the EUI Law department and a Visiting Student Researcher at UC Berkeley Law School. He is the co-founder of Digi-Con, a blog on Law, Tech and Sci-fi Art.
Stefan Luca is a PhD Researcher at the EUI Law department, focusing on the regulation of political speech on digital platforms, in particular efforts to address the spread of dis- & mis- information. In a previous life, he was a human rights lawyer, having worked for the European Court of Human Rights, the Romanian Government and the European Roma Rights Centre, a leading strategic litigation NGO.
Dr. Michael Monterossi completed his PhD in Private Law at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and defended his thesis in February 2019. His current studies focused on the protection of future generations in Private Law and the role of legal subjectivity of non-human entities in guiding the ecological transition; on the liability issues linked to the use of data-driven new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things; on the statute of personal and non-personal data and the role of contract in data flow; the regulation of online platforms in Contract Law and Competition Law.
Anna Morandini is a PhD Researcher in the Law department at the EUI. She is currently researching the emerging European Platform Accountability Framework. Anna previously studied Law at the Universities of Vienna and Bologna. At the former, she worked as a student teaching and research assistant in the fields of criminal and international law.
Participants are welcome to ask questions and take part in the open discussion after the presentations. The event will be held via Zoom. The joining details are circulated upon registration.