Favouring Platforms over Citizens? EU Policy Choices in the Digital Services Act

Gerda Falkner

No 1, Working Papers of the Vienna Institute for European integration research (EIF) from Institute for European integration research (EIF)

Abstract: Is the EU 'distinctly rights-driven' (Bradford 2023), as suggested in recent debates about so-called digital empires opposing the EU to a systematically market-driven US and state-driven China? This article offers an in-depth study of a crucial EU digital policy initiative, the much-acclaimed Digital Services Act. Based on discourse/output analysis it uncovers that the EU hardly performs according to the ideal-type’s expectation. When making choices between stronger or weaker regulation of digital platforms as debated before the Act’s adoption, the platforms’ preferences were consistently and quite strongly preferred over more citizens’ rights-oriented policy options. Recognising and admitting this seems urgent in order to resist attempts from in- and outside the EU to question even the timid regulatory steps the DSA has brought.

Keywords: political science; digital services act; eu policy choices; platforms; european union (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03-13
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