Operationalizing the Regulation of Online Content Under a Democratic Deficit: The Digital Services Act

Europe is currently experiencing a renewed raft of social media regulations with the newly adopt Digital Services Act. This is significant because it demonstrates the European Union further intervening into the technology and digital arena. This Europeanisation of digital services legislation is muscular and sets out significant provisions for social media companies to be sanctioned for non-compliance and presents a range of issues for social media companies. In addition, the measures are unlikely to be a “silver bullet” solution to the range of problems presented by social media platforms. This intervention comes within a European context where American big tech has been blamed for many contemporary political and social ills, including fueling the rise of extremist politics and spreading disinformation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

By Dr. Joseph Downing^[1]

Debates about the divergent demands of freedom of expression on one hand and the need to regulate social media on the other have been reinvigorated in the past year with Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and the contending opinions of whether it will improve freedom of speech and transparency as he has promised,^[2] or whether it will turn twitter into an “extremist ghetto” by offering a space for radical and xenophobic views.^[3] However, little in the broader public, media or political discourse has considered that this promise is not necessarily in Musk’s hands because neither he, nor Twi