How to define platforms’ systemic risks to democracy

It is hard to deny that dominant internet services provide essential consumer goods for much of the world. Having to go a week, much less a day, without efficient Google searches, or losing the ability to interact with others via a social media platform like Instagram, would surely upend many people’s personal and professional lives. Despite their benefits, however, these and other powerful internet services are radically transforming our capitalist society into, potentially, its worst version yet. In so doing, the platform economy gives rise to a myriad of risks which may negatively impact individuals and democracy itself. The European Union’s lawmakers are convinced that platforms can pose such risks, and have therefore enacted the Digital Services Act (DSA), a law that requires so-called Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs) to “diligently identify, analyze and assess any systemic risks in the Union stemming from the design or functioning of their service and its related systems, including algorithmic systems, or from the use made of their services.” These risks include, but are not limited to, the dissemination of illegal content through platforms’ and search engines’ services; any actual or foreseeable negative effects for the exercise of fundamental rights; on civic discourse and electoral processes, and public security; in relation to gender-based violence, the protection of public health, and minors; and serious negative consequences to the person’s physical and mental well-being. When such risks are identified, companies have to take “appropriate measures” to mitigate them.

https://algorithmwatch.org/en/making-sense-of-the-digital-services-act/