Digital Services Act (DSA)

The European Digital Services Act (DSA) lays down new rules for online platforms, seeks to strengthen user rights and intends to hold tech companies to account. But what specific measures does the DSA include and why is it under so much pressure from the new US government and big tech companies?

The EU still has strong rules for the major digital platforms. However, under Donald Trump and his allies - above all powerful tech CEOs such as Musk and Zuckerberg - the USA is becoming an open opponent of these regulations. 

An international coalition has formed around digital public infrastructure – services that empower citizens and drive local innovation. Could a Euro Stack help the EU break with the market logic of big tech and increase its geopolitical autonomy from the US?

DSA launch, platform obligations, and enforcement challenges – the Digital Services Act is another piece of transforming online regulation in Europe. With the DSA rolling out new rules, many are asking how effectively they’ll be implemented. We posed three key questions to Dr. Tobias Mast, expert advisor to the German Bundestag on the DSA, to get his insights on the launch, the hurdles ahead, and how the DSA aims to balance the scales between platforms and users.

An umbrella does not shield against flooding. For the European Democracy Shield to do what it says, it must encompass the full spectrum of hybrid threats, not only foreign disinformation. Like any shield, it is only as strong as its bearer. If it is to be more than a fig leaf, our work to defend democracy must start at home.

This webinar with EU DisinfoLab took place on 16 April 2024, with Devin Bahceci, expert from the Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD), who shared his insights on how platforms have responded to the EU regulations to prevent climate disinformation.

US President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order on artificial intelligence that, while different in form and enforcement authority from the EU’s AI Act, targets many of the current risks of the technology. With policies in effect soon, the EU and US have the chance to work together.

We’re at a climate tipping point, yet international trade rules remain a persistent barrier to climate action. Momentum is also quickly building toward a digital tipping point: one where Big Tech surveillance is too far out of control to reign in, and where human rights and democracy only exist at the whim of tech corporations. Recurrent trade pressures could impact the willingness of the EU and the US to take action to better protect consumers in the digital market, or even to act to fight against climate change. So how did we get here, and what role do the new US–EU cooperation venues have to play?

This paper outlines the policy background that has taken the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and the UK’s Online Safety Bill down their respective legislative journeys and examines how law-makers have responded to the policy challenges in each jurisdiction, and highlights some important differences in the legislative approach.

The differing approaches to the regulation of big tech in the UK and EU highlight some crucial questions for law-makers in both jurisdictions. The EU’s Digital Services Act and the UK’s Online Safety Bill both tackle the need to restrict certain content online and create a framework for regulating online platforms. The measures affect the underlying fundamentals of Internet services in very different ways, which could impact their operation across borders. This blog post considers how current policy choices in these two laws may influence future policy directions and ultimately the whole Internet ecosystem.