Anger and fear are the two emotions most likely to make us click on a link without thinking. Extreme viewpoints are disseminated at a much higher pace than nuanced ones, online. And fake news travels six times faster on the platform X (formally known as Twitter) than the truth. These three findings explain a lot about the world we find ourselves in today: the digital world, and by extension, the political. It did not start out that way. The first years of social media were characterized by great optimism: here was a new way to organize people, to mobilize them. This optimism was not unfounded: from the Arab Spring to the #MeToo movement, the online world has proven its emancipatory potential. But the past decade has taught us that social media networks are equally good at connecting and amplifying our darker human impulses: from the 2021 storming of the US Capitol to disturbing links found between eating disorders and Instagram.

 

While a sense that online spaces need to be regulated has been growing, a problem arose at every attempt at doing so thus far: regulating speech in the name of democracy results in something of a paradox. Free speech and the free flow of information are vital components to any functioning democratic system, after all. But if speech cannot be regulated, what can be regulated? The EU’s new Digital Services Act answers that question in a new way: reach.

 

“There is only so much you can do with a single post,” says Alexandra Geese, a German member of the European Parliament for the Greens, who has worked extensively on the DSA. “You can limit illegal content, but not harmful content – because that immediately launches you into this censorship dilemma. With the DSA we have found a way to avoid this trap. We realized that if we can gain understanding of how these companies work – what their algorithms optimize for, how business models work – we can get to the root of our problems. It’s never just about a single post: it’s about how that post then travels the web.”

 

Geese calls the DSA, which went into full force on the 1st of January 2024, ‘a look under the hood’ of Big Tech: it obliges companies like X or Facebook to share data on the very design of their networks. “So far, we have had total asymmetry when it comes to information,” she says. “These companies know everything about us – but we know very little about them. The DSA changes this. The Commision will have a right to look at their data, and so will independent researchers. There will be a growing body of knowledge and science about the ways these networks impact society. This is important, in order to be able to legally prove such things. For instance: we already know that algorithms that optimize for ‘post engagement’ end up amplifying extreme viewpoints, hate speech, and disinformation. This poses a clear threat to democracy – and thus needs to be addressed.” The responsibility to address these issues, meanwhile, will lie with the tech companies themselves. And if they don’t cooperate? Companies face fines up to 6% of their annual revenues, and structural measures after that.

 

Geese thinks the DSA’s impact on political campaigns and elections has the potential to be significant. “This engagement-based ranking that I just talked about, it favors the radical. That means that the very structure of these networks currently promotes political content that is extremist and populist. Unfortunately, that often means anti-democratic content. The content that gets the most engagement of all is what we call ‘borderline content’ – content that is not illegal and doesn’t violate community standards, but it’s right on the border. This highly favors extremist parties: mostly right-wing ones, but also parties on the progressive spectrum. We can see this effect in many countries right now: the more extremist the discourse, the more visibility parties have on the internet. There are a lot of studies to prove that already. During the last German national election campaign, for instance, 60% of the engagement with political parties on Facebook went to the far-right AfD party. The Greens, meanwhile, managed to get just 3% of the engagement, while we have the biggest budget.”

 

Tech companies will only be able to address these issues by making far-reaching reforms in the design of their networks and business models. “You can see that attempts to do something about these problems within the current model don’t work: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for instance was quite passionate about Covid vaccinations, personally. He therefore tried to promote that kind of content, but stood no chance against his own algorithms. Anti-vaxxer content is just much more powerful in terms of post engagement.” This fact is exploited actively by political actors and global far-right networks, Geese thinks. “There are many ways to test which type of content generates the most engagement, and then adapt your messages to that. This is a really effective way to leverage power online. That is why a look under the hood is important, and why we need reform over moderation.”

 

The rest of the world will be watching Europe closely in 2024, its first year of DSA: will this prove to be the game-changer that amplifies the web’s emancipatory powers and limits its anti-democratic excesses? “It all depends on the scale of its implementation,” says Geese. “It does not yet cover everything we hoped it would. But it is definitely a huge step in the right direction.”