Michal Boni: Harmonisation is a watchword when it comes to DSA

By SME Europe

Digital Services Act is one of the key solution to modernise the European Digital Single Market and adjust to the current and future conditions for digital development. It is the expression of the shift from the 20 years old directive (eCommerce) to the new regulatory framework. It should be the future proof solution. The question is: what can support this shift making the more effective and fruitful for the economies and societies move to the current  and future oriented challenges. And parallely keeping  the  right balance between the fight against illegal content and ensuring online trust  and safety, as well as protecting the fundamental rights.  Additionally, it is the serious question how to define  platforms’ responsibility, accountability, transparency – and clear ways for liabilities. It needs to address some needed measures:

  • EU harmonisation  related to all aspects of the digital services ( it is better to have regulation, than directive).
  • EU harmonisation focused on the clear definition what is legal, what is illegal and how to recognise that: there are many national solutions, but if we want to have harmonised schemes at the European level – we need to start the work on establishing the background for common interpretation of some legal problems, especially, when we are discussing the content challenges  – as for instance the hate speech problem.
  • EU harmonised principles, rules and standards  crucial for content moderation, often using Alghoritmic Content Moderation Systems (ACMS), also with consideration of the possibility to have the human oversight over those systems.
  • EU harmonised standards for tackling some kind of harmful content – not as a part of the regulation, but as a part of the collection of Good Practices and principles for the code of conducts
  • EU harmonised ways for DSA implementation ( how to enforce the solution avoiding redundant burdens, especially for SMEs, how to govern the system of national  Digital Services Coordinators