Short Course on the EU Digital Services Act

Aims

• To provide a systematic overview of the main components and individual obligations in the EU Digital Service Act (DSA).
• To explore in-depth case studies of the most relevant and cutting-edge issues of the DSA, including those that are likely to be litigated.
• To discuss practical strategies for compliance with DSA’s content moderation rules and other due diligence obligations.

Target audience

• Practitioners, in-house lawyers, and civil servants across the world who work on the regulation of digital services, including content moderation, and want to prepare for the DSA’s entry into force.
• Professionals, scholars, and students across the world who are familiar with the regulation of digital services and wish to gain in-depth knowledge of the key DSA issues.

Structure and delivery

• Four 4-hour sessions (1 September 2023; 4 September 2023; 15 September 2023; 22 September 2023)
• Capacity: the short course will be capped at 30 students to maximise interaction.
• Timing: 3pm to 7pm CET
• Location: the course will be delivered on Zoom.
• Format: lectures with in-class discussions and case studies

Topics

• DSA’s scope, components, and broader regulatory context
• DSA’s liability chapter (liability exemptions and injunctions)
• DSA’s due diligence obligations chapter (content moderation and fairness, transparency, advertising, and compliance)
• DSA’s enforcement chapter

Dr Martin Husovec is an Associate Professor of Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His scholarship deals with questions of innovation policy and digital liberties, in particular, regulation of intellectual property and freedom of expression. 

He is the co-author of an upcoming book, The Principles of Digital Services Act (Oxford University Press, forthcoming in 2023), written jointly with Irene Roche Laguna, an official at the EU Commission who has coordinated the Commission’s team dealing with negotiations surrounding the Digital Services Act.

He is also the author of the book, Injunctions against intermediaries in the European Union (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and many articles on the regulation of intermediaries, intellectual property enforcement, and digital freedom of expression.

Martin is a member of the European Copyright Society (ECS), a group of prominent European copyright scholars. He is also a co-founder of a think-tank, European Information Society Institute, which acts as amicus curia before the European Court of Human Rights and operates a domain name dispute resolution system for skTLD. He was an advisor to the President of the Slovak Constitutional Court, national ministries across Europe and Asia, and various EU institutions in the areas of intellectual property, freedom of expression and privacy. His work was repeatedly cited by Advocate Generals at the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Day 1: Friday 1 September 2023, 3pm-7pm CET, via Zoom

Scope and Context

• Digital ecosystem
• DSA’s basic goals and basic outline
• DSA’s regulated services: infrastructure services, platforms, search engines, etc.
• DSA’s basic components: liability chapter, due diligence obligations, and enforcement
• Regulatory context: DSA vs EU law (copyright, P2B regulation, terrorist content); DSA vs national law

Day 2: Monday 4 September 2023, 3pm-7pm CET, via Zoom

Liability

• Liability exemptions: hosting, mere conduit, and caching; 
• The situation of search engines.
• Passive and active hosting and platform services.
• Prohibition of general monitoring obligations.
• Liability case studies: online marketplaces, social media, cyber-lockers, search engines, webhosting, services content delivery networks, internet access providers, and others.
• Injunctions and orders of authorities: filtering and other preventive obligations.
• DSA’s enforcement of liability vs accountability obligations

Day 3: Friday 15 September 2023,  3pm-7pm CET, via Zoom

Accountability

• Accountability under DSA’s due diligence obligations: active vs passive providers, thresholds, and various types of borderline services.
• Basic areas of due diligence obligations: content moderation, fair design, transparency, advertising, and compliance.
• Content moderation rules for hosting services: from notification to statements of reasons, internal appeals, and external out-of-court dispute resolution.
• Content moderation case studies: (1) social networks & hate speech; (2) webhosting & terrorist content; (3) marketplaces & consumer protection; (4) search engines & right to be delisted
• Fairness and transparency, including advertising due diligence obligations.

Day 4: Friday 22 September 2023,  3pm-7pm CET, via Zoom

Compliance, VLOPs and Enforcement

• Oversight obligations & special rules for VLOPs/VLOSEs
• Competence of national DSCs and the European Commission
• Standardisation and Codes of Conduct
• Case studies for enforcement: (1) social network & hate speech content moderation; (2) video-sharing platform as a VLOP & copyright content moderation, (3) web hosting & terrorist content; (4) app store as a VLOP & child abuse material; (5) search engine as a VLOSE & right to be delisted
• Private enforcement of the DSA obligations

• For further information, including registration and fees, please contact Amanda Tinnams, Course Administrator. Email: A.Tinnams@lse.ac.uk.
• The registration form is available here.
• On completion of registration and payment received in full, you will receive a Zoom link and a set of pre-course readings one week before the course commences. The readings will consist of DSA’s legislative text, journal articles, and some chapters from the upcoming book, The Principles of the Digital Services Act.
• Fees: £2,000. An early booking discount of 20% will be available until 3 July 2023. If you have any special requirements, please contact Amanda Tinnams.
• The places are allocated on a first come first served basis. If the registration is full, you can ask to be put on the waiting list.

• A course certificate — “LSE Short Course on the EU Digital Services Act” — will be provided upon completion of the course.
• CPD points can be applied for.

You may make a substitution, giving your place to a colleague, without charge, at any time before the start of the course but all cancellations must be confirmed in writing to Amanda Tinnams, (email A.Tinnams@lse.ac.uk). Cancellations received more than four weeks prior to the start of the course are not subject to any penalty. Cancellation received after that time incur the following penalties: two to four weeks 50% of the course fee, less than two weeks 100% of the course fee. If written notification is not received and you do not attend, the full course fee will be retained as a cancellation charge.