Event Recording: Digital Services Act – A Game Changer for our Fundamental Rights?

With the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European Union is to adopt landmark legislation that will create a framework to regulate online platforms around the world. The DSA will have an impact on the free expression of opinions online, our choices as consumers, the right to privacy and the basic mechanisms of the global Internet. It could address hotly debated issues such as surveillance capitalism, upload filtering and platform lock-in. The event will focus on how to place the rights and freedoms of citizens at the center of the new digital services regulation. The panelists will present their views on some of the key provisions foreseen in the DSA: How to tackle illegal content, disinformation and hate speech online in line with the citizens’ right to freedom of expression? What will the future of ad-based business models look like? How to ensure the diversity of the digital ecosystem?

The event brought together experts from the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Fundamental Rights Agency and civil society. 

You access the recording of the event on PeerTube and Youtube

Programme: 

• Welcome by MEP Breyer
• Opening Remarks: IMCO DSA Rapporteur MEP Christel Schadelmose
• Presentation by Werner Stengg, Digital Expert in the cabinet of Executive-Vice President Vestager
• Presentation by David Reichel, Data and Research Unit (AI and Content Moderation) at the European Agency for Fundamental Rights
• Presentation by Christoph Schmon, International Policy Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Presentation by Shoshana Zuboff, Digital Economist and author of the best-selling book “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” 
• Q&A with panelists and audience, moderated by Jennifer Baker
• Closing Remarks: MEP Breyer

Speakers:

	MEP Christel Schaldemose is the European Parliament’s Rapporteur on the Digital Services Act. She is the S&D group’s coordinator in the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) and also a Member of the Special Committee on Artificial Intelligence in a Digital Age (AIDA). Christel Schaldemose has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2006 and heads the Danish delegation of social democrats.
	Shoshana Zuboff‘s best-selling book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, synthesizes years of research and thinking in order to reveal a world in which technology users are neither customers, employees, nor products. Instead they are the raw material for new procedures of manufacturing and sales that define an entirely new economic order: a surveillance economy. She is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School and a former Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.
	Christoph Schmon is the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s International Policy Director. Christoph has in-depth expertise in EU policy-making and a special focus on international copyright law and online intermediary liability. Prior to working for EFF, he led the Consumer Rights Team at the EU Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and was appointed member of several expert groups to the EU Commission in Brussels.
	Werner Stengg, who joined the European institutions in 1996, is currently in the cabinet of Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, dealing with digital matters. Between 2006 and 2019, he held different head of unit positions across the European Commission, dealing with e-commerce and online platforms, public interest services, online gambling and postal services, and with the better regulation agenda. Prior to that he was involved in mainstreaming policy evaluation across the Commission, in the negotiation of bilateral and multilateral textile trade agreements, and in the negotiations on regulatory files in the areas of aviation and maritime transport. He earned his doctoral degree in economics from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.
	Dr. David Reichel works in the Research & Data Unit at the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). He is responsible for managing FRA’s research projects in the area of artificial intelligence and online content moderation. He is also working on the FRA’s large scale surveys and has extensive experience in statistical data analysis on fundamental rights. He has published numerous articles, papers and book chapters on issues related to migration, citizenship and human rights.

Hosted by: 

MEP Patrick Breyer is the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee’s opinion rapporteur for the Digital Services Act. He is a jurist and Member of the European Parliament with the European Pirates who have joined the Greens/European Free Alliance Group. Breyer’s political work focusses on safeguarding fundamental rights in the digital age, particularly with regard to privacy, citizen participation and democracy.