The EU Digital Services Act: What’s the Deal with the Deal?
Policymakers in the European Union (EU) have finally completed their negotiations over the Digital Services Act (DSA), a regulation that aims to address the spread of illegal content online. Now they have largely agreed on the rules that will govern online content moderation. Some technicalities still have to be ironed out, but the cornerstones of the regulation are known.
The Wikimedia Foundation has been tracking the developments of the DSA since the consultation phase and before the European Commission introduced the draft proposal. We have always supported the core aim of the DSA: to make content moderation more accountable and transparent. At the same time, we have cautioned that designing regulatory structures that only fit the operating models of big, for-profit websites could have devastating consequences for not-for-profit websites like Wikipedia. The legislation will fundamentally shape how online platforms operate in Europe, and also have an impact on the rest of the world online. It is also an opportunity to protect the community-governed, public interest internet, as we asked policymakers to do through four essential measures:
- Rules that address the algorithmic systems and business models that drive the harms caused by illegal content.
- Requirements for transparent and equitable terms of service without overly-prescriptive rules on how they are created and enforced.
- Rules on the processes for identifying and removing “illegal content” must allow user communities to participate.
- Rules that do not force platforms to substitute the work of people with algorithms when it comes to moderating content.
While the DSA, to a certain degree, distinguishes between centralized platforms and those that are community-governed, some concerns remain. Here is how the final outcomes stack up to our requests.