EU Platform Regulation in the Age of Neo-Illiberalism

Abstract

Europe has long been haunted by the spectre of far-right politics, often construed as ‘populist’ opposition to the liberal EU establishment. In 2024, however, far-right discourse and policies seem increasingly welcome within this establishment – not only via far-right parties entering government, but also via their ‘mainstreaming’ across the party spectrum. Reijer Hendrikse theorises this increasingly prevalent synthesis of neoliberal economics with illiberal nationalism as neo-illiberalism. Destabilised by growing inequality and successive crises, centrist parties appeal to nationalism and social conservatism to maintain consent for neoliberal policies while repressing opposition. Illiberal practices always accepted at the global peripheries are thus becoming mainstream in the European core.

Despite the significance of digitalisation in mediating these political-economic shifts, mainstream platform regulation scholarship remains largely disconnected from these wider trends. EU laws are predominantly analysed using normative framings aligned with ‘progressive neoliberalism’, as efforts to balance growth and innovation against fundamental rights and ‘public values’. Schematically, EU regulation is distinguished on this basis from a free-market US approach and authoritarian, state-capitalist Chinese approach.

Against this, the paper makes two key claims. First, EU platform regulation can more helpfully be framed as manifesting an ongoing shift away from progressive neoliberalism and towards neo-illiberalism. Fundamental rights and liberal-democratic norms which previously legitimised EU policy are increasingly sacrificed in favour of unrestrained state surveillance and private-sector-led innovation. Second, methodologically, researchers should not only consider how these laws are being implemented currently, but also look ahead to an increasingly-plausible ‘far-right Europe’.

To demonstrate this framework’s analytical value, the paper examines the 2022 Digital Services Act, arguing that its overall regulatory approach is characteristically neo-illiberal: economically, it embraces marketised media governance and corporate power, while politically, it creates extensive possibilities for state censorship. Broadly, it seeks to strengthen platforms’ accountability in three main ways: individual consumer rights; empowering civil society via transparency and consultation; and technocratic risk management procedures. All three are classically neoliberal regulatory approaches, unlikely to meaningfully constrain corporate power. By creating the appearance of accountability while acquiescing to the organisation of online media around surveillance advertising, the DSA legitimises monopolistic, upward-redistributive ‘platform capitalism’. In parallel, it expands various formal and informal channels for state authorities to demand removal of allegedly-illegal or -harmful content. Recent crackdowns on antiracist, pro-Palestine and climate movements across Europe hint how such mechanisms may be used by current and future illiberal governments.

Overall, then, the DSA represents a clear choice: instead of democratising online media governance, it embraces extractive corporate monopolies and leverages them for state censorship. The predominant framing of the DSA as a possibly-inadequate but fundamentally well-intentioned attempt to uphold liberal constitutionalism in the digital age is therefore misleading. The paper concludes with brief reflections on this analysis’ relevance to the recently-finalised AI Act and the longer-term outlook for EU digital regulation in a future of ‘polycrisis’ and escalating instability.

Keywords: platform regulation, digital services act, platform governance, neo-illiberalism