The EU’s regulation of online platforms – the Digital Services Act (DSA) – requires large online platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok, to assess and mitigate the systemic risks stemming from their services. Risk assessments, if conducted in a meaningful way, can be a very promising mechanism for preventing adverse human rights impacts of online platforms, such as their impact on freedom of expression or the right to privacy and non-discrimination. This potential is lost when risk assessments become a mere box-ticking exercise, rather than a genuine reflection on the platforms’ impacts.
To discuss what a meaningful risk assessment means in practice and how to implement the DSA on the national level in the Netherlands, ECNL, in collaboration with Mozilla Foundation, organised a workshop during the Mozilla Festival which took place in Amsterdam in June 2023. Recognising that successful implementation of risk assessments requires an inclusive, multi-stakeholder effort, we brought together a diverse group of participants, including digital rights groups, legal experts, academics and researchers, technical experts, companies and the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (appointed as an agency tasked with enforcement of the DSA in the Netherlands).
For the purpose of the workshop, we developed a scenario involving an imaginary platform, Swapping.com, which is in the process of conducting its first risk assessment. Based on this imaginary case study, we asked specific questions on how different stakeholders – the company, civil society and regulators – can collaborate most effectively to best identify and mitigate human rights impacts.
We now publish the presentation from the workshop, including the outline of key elements of the DSA and the scenario, encouraging you to reflect on this yourself or use it in your work. In the coming months, we will develop further educational materials for our Learning Center.
See also our policy paper with Access Now in which we developed recommendations for the European Commission and large online platforms on how to conduct fundamental rights impact assessments in a meaningful way.