Articles for category: USA

The Digital Services Act as a Global Transparency Regime

On both sides of the Atlantic, policymakers are struggling to reign in the power of large online platforms and technology companies. Transparency obligations have emerged as a key policy tool that may support or enable achieving this goal. The core argument of this blog is that the Digital Services Act (DSA) creates, at least in part, a global transparency regime. This has implications for transatlantic dialogues and cooperation on matters concerning platform governance.

7. März 2024

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A2D for Researchers in Digital Platforms

Over the past decade, access to data (A2D) in digital platforms has emerged as a significant challenge within the research community. Researchers seeking to explore data hosted on these platforms encounter growing obstacles. While legal policies in the US have generally focused on establishing safeguards for researchers against the restrictions on access imposed by private ordering, the recent EU Digital Service Act (DSA) introduces a legal framework, which enables researchers to compel platforms to provide data access. These complementary legal strategies may prove instrumental in facilitating A2D for research purposes.

23. Februar 2024

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A Systemic Approach to Implementing the DSA’s Human-in-the-Loop Requirement

Policymakers and the public are increasingly concerned about a lack of transparency and accountability in content moderation. Opaque and incontestable content moderation decisions have potential impacts on freedom of expression and media freedom, and well-known issues of discrimination and bias. Our focus here is on how Article 20 DSA can and should be interpreted going forward. Specifically, does Article 20 require a human content moderator to review every content moderation decision on request? And should it?

22. Februar 2024

Who’s Afraid of Militant Democracy, U.S. Style

Yesterday, Professor Samuel Issacharoff asked “Can it really be that one public official in Maine can remove a national presidential candidate on her say-so?” Professor Issacharoff and I, as well as every proponent of disqualification I know of, agree on a basic point. Right-wing populist authoritarianism cannot be defeated by legal decree. Government by the people cannot be maintained by means other than government by the people. Disqualifying individual candidates who resort to violence when they lose the vote, however, does not raise the difficulties that concern Professor Issacharoff and are consistent with democratic rule.

20. Februar 2024

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Trump’s Trials for Democracy

It is hard to imagine a stable democracy having to confront the legal challenges presented by Donald Trump’s bid for reelection.  Courts have found him to be responsible for sexual assault, defamation and fraud, all in relatively quick succession. Taken together with repeated acts of demagogy and cruelty, the various legal proceedings reinforce the sense that Trump simply does not belong within the bounds of legitimate democratic contestation. But the charges against him thus far are civil claims that have no formal bearing on his bid for office. Nor do they seem to affect public opinion as the polarized electoral environment has little intermediate play that might be swayed by scandal, legal condemnation, or even the sense that enough is enough.

19. Februar 2024

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A Hobgoblin Comes for Internet Regulation

Recent laws in the US, along with the Digital Services Act (DSA), seek to provide “due process” for individual content moderation decisions. Due process, understandably enough, often contains a component of treating like cases alike. It seems to follow, then, that if two relevantly similar users are treated differently, there is a problem of inconsistency, and that problem might be addressed by requiring more “due process” in the forms of appeals and clear rules and explanations of those rules to offenders. But it is said that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. In internet regulation, it is a damaging goal if taken as a mandate to make individual decisions uniformly consistent with each other.

19. Februar 2024

From the DMCA to the DSA

On 17 February 2024, the Digital Services Act (DSA) became fully applicable in Europe. The DSA's new approach fundamentally reshapes the regulation and liability of platforms in Europe, and promises to have a significant impact in other jurisdictions, like the US, where there are persistent calls for legislative interventions to reign in the power of Big Tech. This symposium brings together a group of renowned European and American scholars to carry an academic transatlantic dialogue on the potential benefits and risks of the EU’s new approach.

19. Februar 2024

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Subnational Politics and the Path of National Democracies

In Germany and the United States, political factions have emerged in the last decade that have challenged some of the core institutions, conventions, and norms of liberal democratic life. In both countries, subnational units of government—states or municipalities—have operated as staging grounds for parties or factions of parties that reject some or all necessary elements of democratic practice. While they have used different institutional tactics to this end, many basic elements of political strategy can be observed across the two cases.

8. Februar 2024

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Biden, Bletchley, and the emerging international law of AI

Everyone talks about AI at the moment. Biden issues an Executive Order while the EU hammers out its AI Act, and world and tech leaders meet in the UK to discuss AI. The significance of Biden’s Executive Order can therefore only be understood when taking a step back and considering the growing global AI regulatory landscape. In this blogpost, I argue that an international law of AI is slowly starting to emerge, pushing countries to adopt their own position on this technology in the international regulatory arena, before others do so for them. Biden’s Executive Order should hence be read with exactly this purpose in mind.

15. November 2023

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Post-populist Populism

Good news for democracy from Poland? It appears that in the recent general elections, the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS), won most seats but not enough to allow it to form a coalition. Donald Tusk's Civic Coalition has a better chance of forming a coalition, which might put an end to PiS' eight years of rule. This, prima facie, seems like a victory of democracy over populism. While this is certainly true, in this post we wish to flag certain warning signs that this possible democratic rotation is not the end of the struggle for democracy but merely the beginning of this process. This is because even when populists are voted out of office, their legacy - at least partially - persists.

19. Oktober 2023

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