Back to the Future? The Digital Services Act and Regulating Online Platforms Built on Community-Led Moderation.

Abstract

The Digital Services Act (DSA) is the most profound update of the EU’s online legislation since 2000, when the e-Commerce Directive was adopted. On the one hand, the European Commission’s proposal wrestles with this long legacy of conceptualizing what online intermediation is about. On the other, it tackles technological developments and current approaches to capitalizing on user-generated content.

This article follows the evolution of the EU legislator’s approaches to conceptualizing online intermediation’s distinctive features. It investigates the adequacy of responses crafted to address illegal content and its availability from the perspective of user freedom. The following assessment focuses on services that have adopted user-led content moderation as their model of promoting freedom to receive and impart information and access to free knowledge. Due diligence provisions aimed at increasing transparency, especially those shaping the terms and conditions of online platforms and involving notice and action mechanism, provide key examples.

Keywords: Digital Services Act, DSA, content moderation, Wikipedia, intermediary liability, eCommerce Directive, Digital Single MArket, DSM, copyright