Article | Open Access
The Regulation of Disinformation Under the Digital Services Act
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Abstract: This article critically examines the regulation of disinformation under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). It begins by analysing how the DSA applies to disinformation, discussing how the DSA facilitates the removal of illegal disinformation, and on the other hand, how it can protect users’ freedom of expression against the removal of certain content classified as disinformation. The article then moves to the DSA’s special risk‐based rules, which apply to Very Large Online Platforms in relation to mitigation of systemic risks relating to disinformation, and are to be enforced by the European Commission. We analyse recent regulatory action by the Commission in tackling disinformation within its DSA competencies, and assess these actions from a fundamental rights perspective, focusing on freedom of expression guaranteed under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Keywords: Digital Services Act; disinformation; European Union; online platforms; freedom of expression; regulatory enforcement
Published:
Issue:
Vol 13 (2025): Protecting Democracy From Fake News: The EU’s Role in Countering Disinformation
© Ronan Ó Fathaigh, Doris Buijs, Joris van Hoboken. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction of the work without further permission provided the original author(s) and source are credited.