EU's Crucial Considerations for the Digital Services Legislation

The European Commission is drafting the Digital Services Act (DSA), an update to the eCommerce Directive from 2000, aiming to modernise its approach to the data economy and establish rules for online platforms of all sizes for the foreseeable future.

The DSA, spearheaded by key figures such as Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age, and Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market, aims to reduce fragmentation of the digital single market and clarify the rules around liability, applying them consistently to online services.

One of the primary objectives of the DSA is to promote transparency. It requires online services to provide more transparency about their policies and processes for responding to illegal content, as well as their appeals processes available to users. This move is intended to foster trust and accountability among service providers and users alike.

The DSA also seeks to strike a balance between regulating the digital market and preserving free speech online. It should not negatively impact free speech by allowing each EU member state to set its own content regulations standard. Furthermore, it should not allow EU member states to enforce competing content regulations laws in other EU countries or outside the EU.

The Commission believes that large online platforms do not harm European consumers and businesses, and do not threaten EU sovereignty. However, the DSA recognises the importance of addressing issues such as the removal of lawful offline content, like certain forms of disinformation and hate speech. Nevertheless, the DSA should refrain from requiring online services to remove such content without proper justification.

The growth of large online platforms results in diminishing costs, increased investment in R&D, and increasing value which largely benefits consumers. Therefore, the DSA should not impose additional regulations on these platforms unless necessary. Instead, it should create penalties for service providers that consistently fail to respond appropriately to illegal content notifications.

Moreover, the DSA aims to abolish the distinction between "active" and "passive" online services, holding companies responsible for the timely removal of illegal content once they learn about it on their services. It also extends liability protections to all online services for content they neither produced nor had actual knowledge of being illegal.

Getting these policies right will give the EU a chance to nurture scalable data-driven businesses and lead in the global Internet economy. The DSA represents a significant step towards a more unified and responsible digital market in the EU.