Why the DSA Targets the Wrong Thing
/Platform governance, EU regulation, DSA
The Digital Services Act is the most serious attempt any government has made to hold platforms accountable. It forces transparency about moderation, gives users a way to appeal removals, and puts real obligations on the biggest companies. Credit where it’s due.
It is also aimed at the wrong layer.
The harm on TikTok or Instagram doesn’t live in any single post. It lives in the system that decides what you see next, the one that figures out faster than any human what keeps you scrolling. Nobody outside the company fully understands how TikTok’s recommender works. TikTok’s own CEO couldn’t explain the For You feed to the US Senate. You can’t moderate your way out of a system like that. You have to regulate the system.
The DSA knows this, sort of. It requires the biggest platforms to offer a feed that isn’t based on profiling, which is a start. But it stops there. Users get an alternative feed. They don’t get to see how the default one works, and neither do regulators, not really.
Then there’s enforcement. The DSA has fines on paper. Getting a non-EU company to change its core product is another matter. The Commission has opened proceedings against several platforms; how much any of them actually changes remains to be seen.
None of this makes the DSA a mistake. It makes it a first draft. If the goal is to fix what social media does to public life, the next version has to get into the machine.