Digital Services Act: Three more Trusted Flaggers named

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With the appointment of HateAid, the Federal Association of Online Retailers and the Federation of German Consumer Organizations, the Federal Network Agency, as the responsible German Digital Services Coordinator, has expanded the circle of "Trusted Flaggers", as they are called in German, for the first time. Together with the Respect reporting office, which was appointed last year, there are now four organizations on the Federal Network Agency's list of trusted flaggers.

Prioritization of reports

The trusted flaggers have a special status under the European Digital Services Act. They play a role in content moderation in particular: notifications from qualified bodies must be prioritized by the platform operators. The three new Trusted Flagger organizations bring two new aspects to this area: while the Federation of German Consumer Organizations will focus primarily on product safety, online trade and fraud, the Federation of German Online Retailers will turn its attention to brand piracy and counterfeit products or unfair competition. Some of the currently particularly popular online marketplaces have so far been unable to get to grips with the problems of unlicensed or non-compliant products.

In addition to the options under the Digital Services Act, both organizations also have other means at their disposal, such as issuing warnings against the platforms under the regulations against unfair competition or notifying the authorities responsible for product safety in the case of imports. "Operators of online platforms are not obliged to actively monitor content," explains Sven Scharioth, head of market surveillance at the Federation of German Consumer Organizations. "This makes it all the more important that the platforms learn of possible violations of product safety requirements and consumer law." Users can use the consumer protection organization's complaint form for this purpose.

Misanthropic content

With HateAid, another player is also certified as a "trustworthy whistleblower" that has focused primarily on misanthropic content. "Whether Meta, X or Tiktok: social media platforms allow criminal content such as death threats or anti-Semitic hate speech to be spread by radical forces," says HateAid Managing Director Josephine Ballon, who sees the designation of the non-profit GmbH as a Trusted Flagger as a step towards greater accountability. With the DSA, platforms are now being prescribed legal rules for the first time that are democratically legitimized, unlike the private-law usage agreements. "It is an attempt to defend our democracy, the EU member states and each individual user against the arbitrariness of tech platforms," says Ballon. Hate Aid had previously gained notoriety by supporting celebrities in enforcing their rights against platforms.

Headwinds

Meanwhile, critics fear that the designated trusted flagger organizations would become judges of freedom of expression – and that the platforms would block more content than appropriate in response to their advice. However, the operators themselves must check and decide whether reports received also lead to the blocking or deletion of content – after becoming aware of them. This is therefore an additional option to the generally applicable rules for notifying platform operators of potentially illegal content. The DSA has also introduced a right to object to blocking: Anyone who believes that their content has been wrongly removed can demand redress here.

The four "trusted whistleblowers" now approved in Germany must prove their diligence and trustworthiness to the national DSA supervisory authority as part of an application process for entry in the list of qualified organizations. The certification is then published and can be revoked at any time. The idea for this form of cooperation between organizations and platform operators originally came from YouTube. The organizations do not receive any money for their work – from the Digital Services Coordinator or from the platform operators, whose work they relieve with their preliminary checks.

Across the EU, 34 trusted flaggers are now qualified by competent supervisory authorities. In Germany, more than 20 applications have been submitted so far, although some of them have no prospect of success. To date, the German supervisory authority for the DSA, which is based at the Federal Network Agency, is still not sufficiently staffed, as the target number of posts will only be reached with the 2025 federal budget. The German legislation on the DSA for the 2024 budget went through parliament too late.

(mki)