Digital Services Regulation or DSA: registration of an online platform on the transparency database (art. 24.5)

The online platform provider must follow the four steps below, in conjunction with the European Commission and the Digital Services Coordinator(CSN) in the country of its main establishment, i.e. Arcom in France (for platforms not established in France, the list of CSNs in each Member State is kept up to date at this address).

To browse and download the diagram, click on the link below:

Summary diagram: registration of online platforms on the RSN/DSA transparency database

The obligation to send moderation decisions and statements of reasons to the European Commission's database applies to all online platforms (see definition in art. 3.i of the RSN and a diagram situating online platforms in the overall context of the various RSN obligation regimes is available here), whatever your audience and your establishment.

As an exception, micro or small businesses [1] are exempt: they are not required to send their moderation decisions and explanatory statements to the database.

[1] A small company employs fewer than 50 people and its annual turnover or balance sheet total does not exceed 10 million euros (see Commission notice 2003/361/EC of May 6, 2003). A microenterprise is a subset of the broader category of small business.

What is an RSN moderation decision?

The RSN defines "content moderation" as follows (see art. 3. t):

"'content moderation' : activities, whether automated or not, undertaken by intermediary service providers which are intended, in particular, to detect and identify unlawful content or information incompatible with their terms and conditions, provided by recipients of the service, and to fight agains such content or information, including measures taken which affect availability, visibility and accessibility of such content or information, such as downgrading, demonetizing, disabling or removing it, or affecting the ability of recipients of the service to provide such information, such as deleting or suspending a recipient's account".

The RSN (article 17) [2] makes provision for any hosting service provider (including online platforms) that makes a moderation decision against a user to inform the user and explain the reasons for such decisions clearly and specifically in an "explanatory statement". The information provided must be "clear and easy to understand, and as precise and detailed as reasonably possible" (see art. 17.4).

A statement of reasons must include at least the following information:

• information on the nature of the moderation action (e.g. downgrading, visibility restriction, demonetization) ;
• the facts and circumstances on the basis of which the decision was taken [3]; (see art. 17.3.b)

where appropriate, information on the use of automated means for detection and moderation decisions; (see art. 17.3.c)

• a reference to the legal basis or contractual clauses enabling the hosting service provider to consider that the content is presumed unlawful or incompatible with the general terms and conditions, and an explanation of the reasons for this analysis; (see art. 17.3.d and e)
• information on the possibilities of recourse available to the user to contest the moderation decision, in particular through internal complaint handling mechanisms, out-of-court dispute settlement and legal recourse; (see art. 17.3.f)

[2] Article 17 of the RSN does not apply to injunctions issued by the public authorities referred to in article 9.

[3] Where the decision has been taken on the basis of an alert (article 16 of the RSN) or on the basis of voluntary investigations, this information must also be included in the explanatory memorandum; the identity of the person making the notification must be mentioned only where strictly necessary.

In the interests of transparency, online platforms must submit moderation decisions and explanatory statements to the European Commission for inclusion in a publicly accessible database managed by the Commission. As mentioned above (I. Step 4), this is theDSA Transparency Database. Anyone can browse the moderation decisions taken by online platforms within the European Union.

When transmitting this information, the online platform provider must ensure that it is purged of personal data (see art. 24.5).

The European Commission provides the public with various tools for understanding, analyzing and downloading the data communicated by online platforms. For example, it is possible to search for specific statements of reasons using advanced filters, and to view moderation data from online platforms.

To browse and download the diagram, click on the link below:

Summary diagram: what to do when making a moderation decision?