Third-party dispute settlement in online content moderation: a necessary compliance requirement for online platforms or a constitutional aberration?

ABSTRACT

Online platforms regulate and remove large amounts of illegal and harmful content (from content infringing IP rights to Covid-19 disinformation). Art. 18 of the proposed EU Digital Services Act Regulation ("DSA"), the most significant piece of regulation concerning online platforms, proposes a new system of "online courts" that would resolve any content-related disputes between platforms and their users. The paper discusses Art. 18 DSA (more precisely its version proposed by the European Commission, which is currently in the legislative process), the requirements it will place on dispute settlement bodies and the possible impact of these requirements on their operation and accessibility of such proceedings to users. It also briefly analyses the position of online platforms as defendants in content-related disputes and suggests changes to Art. 18 DSA that could be made to remove the identified shortcomings.