In the journal Zeitschrift für Rechtspolitik, PD Matthias C. Kettemann, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulz and Martin Fertmann ask whether the digital legal acts planned by the European Commission can live up to their claims.
Kettemann, M. C.; Schulz, W.; Fertmann, M. (2021): Anspruch und Wirklichkeit der Plattformregulierung. Kommissionsentwürfe der Rechtsakte zu digitalen Diensten und Märkten [Claim and Reality of Platform Regulation. Commission Drafts of the Legal Acts on Digital Services and Markets]. In: ZRP – Zeitschrift für Rechtspolitik, 54(2021)5, pp. 138-142.
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Abstract
The European Commission wants to plough the field of action of online platforms anew. After years of preparation, the legal act on digital services and the one on digital markets are supposed to help European regulatory approaches to the platform economy achieve a breakthrough: more transparency, more rights for users, and more responsibility for the platforms. Do the legal acts live up to their claim?
At the same time, the attempted reorganisation of European platform governance must not be overloaded with expectations that cannot be fulfilled. Neither new responsibility and transparency rules, nor a special platform antitrust law, new data rules or a restriction on the use of artificial intelligence will alone (and not in aggregate) reverse social trends (such as towards individualisation or de-solidarization) or processes of media change or changes in media consumption behaviour. Attempts to “platform-proof” democracies must therefore always be accompanied by other structural measures. In this view, the redesign of the legal framework for platforms is a necessary beginning, but obviously not the end of sustainably securing the freedom of democratic processes of self-determination. Filling democracy with life is a task that arises anew every day.