Will Europe Sacrifice the Digital Services Act in Negotiations with Trump?

Imagine this: Providers of very large online platforms (VLOPs) walking away from the commitments they made to fight hate speech, disinformation, and other systemic risks, simply ignoring the requirements of Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and detaching themselves from international regulation. This would mean unregulated platforms that accumulate data and opinion power, ever more closely intertwining state and economic influence in an unprecedented manner. Systemic risks to societies around the world would be massively exacerbated.

With pressure mounting from the new administration and political dynamics in Europe, we are at a make-or-break moment, a twilight situation in which the DSA could be up or out.

European lawmakers, civil society, and academics worked for more or less a decade on developing a regulatory framework to confine platform power, reduce systemic risks, and remedy the democratic deficit that global platform players pose to society.

The data access under DSA Article 40 is one prominent example: This access can help independent researchers assess systemic risks for democratic societies and promises to ensure stable democracies in tandem with a regulated, fair, transparent, and successful platform economy. While access to public data under Article 40.12 is already fully implemented, platform non-compliance significantly impedes researchers' work. The European Commission has opened cases against multiple VLOPs, but enforcement is slow, and the outcome is uncertain. Access to non-public data under 40.4, a sharper sword in the fight against systemic risks like disinformation, potentially partisan algorithms, and threats to digital well-being, has been a long-awaited specification through a Delegated Act. Researchers are still waiting for its publication, and hopes are high. But so are the fears that enforcement might not be forceful enough to enable effective research.

Most parts of the DSA are already in effect: ad libraries and moderation databases have been set up, trusted flaggers have been designated, and the Commission has started ten proceedings investigating non-compliance. However, there have not been many outcomes affecting US platforms apart from requirements for the provision of additional information (retention orders were issued to X and TikTok, and TikTok had to withdraw its Lite rewards program from the EU). There are three things needed from the new Commission: enforcement, enforcement, and enforcement.

That is where a major challenge arises: Completely neglecting previous calls for more regulation, US platforms, in tandem with the second Trump administration, have made clear that they have no appetite for European regulation, and in particular, the DSA, which they write off as censorship. Of course, none of this is true, but the combination of the geopolitical challenges that the EU is facing with Russian military aggression close to European borders and the United States claiming European values to contradict free speech have made enforcement for the EU a delicate act. With Big Tech vocally aligning with the Trump regime, and advanced investigations into X, whose unelected billionaire owner, Elon Musk, has an office in the White House, the DSA is poised to become a bargaining chip in geopolitical negotiations — if it hasn’t already been traded.

This can go in two directions: First, the Commission can urgently and decisively escalate the enforcement of DSA regulations against VLOPs, wrap up the cases against X, Meta, and TikTok should they find evidence for non-compliance, and fine the platforms as necessary. But what if the platforms don't comply? The EU would lose time in lengthy court battles, and in the end—as stipulated in the DSA—platforms could be banned from the European market under Art. 82(1). However, the pushback from the population would be huge and could put the EU in domestic trouble. Taking away TikTok and Facebook from European citizens could lead to a stronger reputation loss than deciding the shape of cucumbers did in the 1980s.

Second, if the EU does not escalate the DSA and leaves platforms with an unregulated market, we are looking at a grim future where platforms accumulate more and more opinion power while contributing to the erosion of the public sphere so that, ultimately, there is little opposition against autocratic shifts that we see in multiple countries.

A third scenario is also possible: skewed enforcement. Politicians in both the US and EU are in love with the mitigation of a particular risk: threats to minors—especially when it is framed as a reason to infringe on fundamental rights or target people outside the nuclear, heterosexual family. Considering the previous and ongoing meddling of a ‘special US government employee’ in European elections, one could imagine the Commission abandoning the removal of illegal content or risks to civic discourse, electoral processes, and public security in favor of overly narrow enforcement related to the protection of minors. However, such moves would arguably help neither children nor the stability of the European Union if the majority of risks stay undiscovered and unaddressed. The opposite is the case: democracy is the vulnerable teenager in need of protection. Effective risk governance thus requires a resilient dual-track approach with a broad conception of systemic risks for researchers on the one hand and politically independent and thorough enforcement on the other.

What to do? The EU needs to keep the DSA strong. The DSA is imperfect and is not immediately ready to defend us against all the threat vectors that digital platforms expose. It is, to some extent, similar to the European Defence Alliance. There are not sufficient resources to defend Europe, and the armed forces are not in a perfect state. However, it is the best thing we have right now, and if EU countries work together, it can be a stronger shield than many can imagine. A governance framework like the DSA thus does not just serve to uphold core European values and to defend the EU’s democratic societies. The DSA captures the EU’s participatory, transparent, and federal essence.

The European Commission needs to continue to enforce the Digital Services Act and re-up its game by getting faster and more fierce. A lot is at stake at the moment for Europe’s territorial and digital integrity. From the perspective of civil society organizations, NGOs, scientists, and governments, who have worked long and hard to arrive at the DSA framework, using it as a global bargaining chip in geopolitical clashes is wrong. We cannot foresee the future and the decisions necessary, but the DSA is a high-value chip on the negotiation table that must not be played in round one. While we may have to defend European borders in the future, we are already in a situation that requires defending democratic discourse, factual information, and societal cohesion. The DSA bolsters this effort and is an important part of securing European integrity.

The DSA is a shield meant to reinforce and defend European democracy. European leaders must protect it to ensure a democratic future, both online and offline.